Echoes in Eternity

Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl Movie Trailer from Gorilla Poet Productions on Vimeo.

From Morehead State's opening round rejection of Louisville's attempt at a long tourney run to Butler's continuation of last year's magic (including the craziest 1.4 seconds in college basketball history) to VCU's domination of their heavily-favored opponents, it was a glorious beginning to the 2011 edition of March Madness. I can't wait to see what next weekend has in store. The Book Bracketology contest is pretty much over for some brackets, particularly those that picked Pitt, Purdue, or Notre Dame to win it all. Meanwhile, the front-runners of Kristyn and Colin have put themselves in good position with their picks, but the field is still wide open. By this time next week, we'll probably be down to a handful of brackets still in the running... good luck!

As I mentioned earlier this week, we are only a few days from the announcement of the 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball tournament bracket, and that also means we have come to my second annual Book Bracketology contest where you all can compete to win books, gift certificates, and the like. I have the rules posted above, but in short, you can enter up to 3 brackets at a cost of $5 a bracket. The overall winner takes home the main prize of a few books as well as some gift certificates. There will also be prizes for a couple other categories, such as closest guess to the total score of the championship game. Last year, the champ took home a nice load of books as well as a gift card to Amazon. That was from a group of 15 contestants (and 18 total brackets). If we can double that number this year, imagine the good books that could be gracing your bookshelf by the end of April. Join now!

I just wanted to give a quick reminder that the second annual Echoes in Eternity Book Bracketology contest is nearly here. The March Madness brackets will be announced this coming Sunday, and I should have the details up later this week. Want to win some books? Stay tuned...

I'm working my way through the entire collection of Holmesian literature, and came across this little nugget a couple nights ago.

"Our highest assurance of the goodness of [God] seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.” - Sherlock Holmes

Marshall Posey's winnings from Book Bracketology (plus he won a $40 Amazon gift certificate)...

If you missed last night's NCAA championship game, you missed one of the best title games ever. If the basket had been located a mere inch in one direction, Butler would have walked away as victors... and DJ with second place in the Book Bracketology contest. Instead, Aaron completed his amazing comeback from last place to snag second while Marshall, having already wrapped up first place, also took home the side pot prize for being the closest guess to the total final score in the championship game. With his Nostradamus-like prognosticating skills, he wins six books and a $40 gift certificate to Amazon (a total value of approximately $120!). Aaron wins two books of his choice from the primary four books. Thanks for playing and come back next March for another chance at bracket glory!

Marshall Posey takes home first prize! Now to see who gets second, DJ or Aaron...

Tim Challies has an excellent post today on the necessity of reading, and how to go about it.

Read - Start with the obvious: you need to read. If you want to be a good painter, you've got to paint; if you want to be a good runner, you've got to run. So before anything else, you need to commit to the discipline. Unless reading is a genuine passion, you may need to be very deliberate about setting aside time to do it. You may need to force yourself into it. Set yourself some reasonable targets ("I'm going to read three books this year" or "I'm going to finish this book before the end of the month") and work towards it. Set aside time every day or every week and make sure you pick up the book during those times. Start out by reading a book that deals with a subject of particular interest to you.
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Read Widely - I'm convinced that one reason people do not read more is that they do not vary their reading enough. Any subject, no matter how much you are interested in it, can begin to feel dry if you focus all of your attention upon it. So be sure to read widely. Read fiction and non-fiction, theology and biography, current affairs and history.
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Read Deliberately - Similar to reading widely, ensure that you read deliberately. Choose your books carefully. If you neglect to do this, you may find that you overlook a particular category for months or even years at a time.
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Read Heavy Books - It can be intimidating to stare at some of those massive volumes or series of volumes sitting on your bookshelf, but be sure to make time to read some of those serious works. A person can only grow so much while living on a diet of easy-reading Christian Living books or Amish romance novels.
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Read Light Books - While dense books should be a serious reader's main diet, there is nothing wrong with pausing to enjoy the occasional novel or light read. After reading two or three good books, allow yourself to read a Clancy or Grisham or Peretti or something else that never changed anyone's life.
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Read New Books - Keep an eye on what is new and popular and consider reading what other people in your church or neighborhood are reading. If The Shack is selling millions of copies, consider reading it so you know what everyone else is reading and so you can attempt to discern why people are reading it.
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Read Old Books - Do not read only new books. I cannot say this any better than C.S. Lewis: "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones. Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books."
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Read What Your Heroes Read - We all have our heroes--men or women we want to be like. Most heroes (who are worth emulating) have been shaped by the books they have read.

It's been a crazy tournament, but we're down to only two for the Book Bracketology title. DJ Williams and Marshall Posey. Let's get ready to rumbleeeeeeee! West Virginia beats Duke and DJ goes home with a bunch of books and gift certificates. Duke wins instead and Marshall is the grand prize winner. Second place is still up for grabs to several people...

• DJ gets second if Duke beats West Virginia but then loses in the championship game.
• AJ Kings takes second if West Virginia beats Duke.
• Aaron Vovk finishes an improbable comeback and grabs second place if Duke wins it all.

Good luck to all. If you haven't paid for your bracket, now is a great time to do so. You can pay me in person or via this Paypal link.

Thanks for playing everyone!

Ouch, this has been a rough year for March Madness brackets. Almost everyone's left side is now dead. Appropriately, only eight "elite" brackets still have a shot at winning it all, and a couple more could sneak in a second place finish. Keeping in mind that my top-ranked bracket is ineligible to win any prizes, here are (I believe) the winning scenarios so you know how to root over the next ten days:

• D.J. Williams wins... if West Virginia makes it to the championship game or loses to Baylor in the Final Four.
• Bryan McWhite takes home first prize... if Kentucky wins it all and Baylor beats Duke OR if Baylor beats Duke and Kentucky as long as Kansas State does not make the championship game.
• Marshall Posey is the grand kahuna... if Duke beats West Virginia in the Final Four.
• Mike Brown wins... if Kentucky beats Duke in the Final Four but does not win the championship game as long as Kansas State does not make the title game.
• AJ King wins... if Kentucky beats Duke in the Final Four and also wins the title game as long as Kansas State does not progress beyond the the Final Four.
• Holly Nimchuk wins... if Kansas State beats Butler and Duke beats Kentucky in the Final Four but loses the championship game**.
• Josiah Bruder wins... if Kentucky beats Duke and then beats Kansas State in the championship game OR if Baylor and Kansas State play for the title and Kentucky beats West Virginia.
• Aaron Vovk wins... if Duke wins it all and Kentucky beats West Virginia**.
  

**Holly and Aaron tie if K-State beats Butler and Duke wins it all, which means it will come down to the tiebreaker score.

If you haven't gotten me the entrance fee yet, try to do so soon.

After a whirlwind first couple of rounds, the dust has cleared and Marshall Posey is currently the bracket leader... but for how long? His champion selection of Kansas is out, so it will take some work for him to hold onto first place. It will help all the Kansas backers to start cheering for Northern Iowa or St. Mary's to win it all.

And Kerby takes the early lead. Everyone's still in it, though some more than others. Aaron needs a few upsets and Duke to win it all as many of his top picks crumbled.

The prize chest consists of approximately $135 worth of books and/or gift certificates. The closest guess to the total final score of the championship game will get a $25 Amazon gift certificate. The runner-up in the final standings receives his (or her?) choice of two of the four main prize books (listed here) while the champ will not only win those four books, but also two additional books and an Amazon gift certificate. Good luck to all!

Only an hour away now from the start of the 2010 NCAA men's basketball tournament known as March Madness. Below is a little reminder of the excitement it's offered in the past. Book Bracketology is open for one more hour before brackets lock for good.

Only slightly more than 36 hours left before the brackets lock and the NCAA tournament begins. Register here (password: "book"). Remember to get me payment for your bracket(s) or arrange it with me by Friday night.

Dalrymple has a great column this week on the impotency of foreign aid (specifically that which is given by governments). It brings to mind the same principles behind the book When Helping Hurts. The same is true in both: more times than not, foreign aid only serves to undermine its purpose. Send federal money to an impoverished country and you'll likely increase the suffering, not lessen it.

The New York Times on March 10 quoted a United Nations report to the effect that aid given to Somalia was not reaching the people most in need of it, that is to say the malnourished and the starving.

I would not be telling you the truth if I said that, when I read the news, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Can there be anyone left in the world who thinks that aid will go only, or even mainly, to the people most in need of it? By comparison with such a belief, faith in Father Christmas is a model of rational expectation. At least the presents arrive, even if Father Christmas doesn’t.
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In most African countries, it is not the enterprise of the local people that had led to the extraction of mineral wealth, but rather that of foreigners, exploitative as they may often have been. Even though local people have supplied the manual labour necessary to the extraction, the wealth as a whole that accrues to African society as a whole comes as a free gift, more or less as aid does.

This is a disaster for the rounded development of a backward country, for it makes control of the government (which receives the bulk of the wealth accruing to African society from mineral extraction) the most important, and sometimes the only, path to personal or ethnic advancement. Ambition itself is wholly politicised, therefore, and the humble task of producing things is left to the unambitious and perhaps the less able.
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If you mix in a little ethnic discord with government control of mineral revenues, the scene is set for prolonged, indeed endless and often bloody political struggles. Far from being a blessing, therefore, oil wealth has been a curse for Nigeria.

In countries less well-endowed with extractable wealth, foreign aid has played the part of oil in Nigeria. Oil constitutes at least 80 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings; in several African countries, foreign aid constitutes very nearly as much.

This results in the same perversions of the national economy, and the same obstacles to real development, as oil has done in Nigeria. The ambitious and able people want to join the government, and so life in general is deeply politicised; genuine economic life is paralysed, and becomes a desperate zero sum game.

When this happens, there is a built-in and deeply perverse incentive to continue to follow policies that impoverish, for a flourishing economy would obviate the supposed need for the foreign aid which is the source of the power, influence and wealth of the elite through whom it is funnelled. Here is one case in which poverty really is a source of wealth.

The most extreme instance of the above syndrome is civil war. It is therefore not in the least surprising that aid to Somalia is not reaching the neediest; it would be very surprising, indeed it would be absolutely astonishing, if it were. Neither is it surprising, however, that it should be reported as if it were surprising (unsurprising news not being news). For otherwise, the fact that aid does not reach the neediest would be a threat to our sense of power, our feelings of omnipotence. How could a few lousy uneducated Somalian gunmen be thwarting our infinite benevolence?

The March Madness brackets have been announced! The matchups are set. It's time to put up or shut up. Go Gophers!

The Book Bracketology website is completely live now, and you can add up to two extra brackets in the upper right corner of the bracket page. Each bracket is $5 and goes to increasing the size of the winning prize(s). If you haven't already, go sign up and enter your bracket picks to win some great books and gift certificates. I've got the full rundown of the competition and scoring rules here. Brackets must be paid for by the end of the first round or they will become ineligible from winning anything. If you have any problems, let me know. Feel free to advertise to your friends!

Only a week away!

[UPDATE: The CBS bracket website is now live. Password is "book". If you have any trouble registering, let me know.]

Any March Madness fans out there? Or people who like to read good books? Well, this should interest you. This year, I'm combining the exciting intrigue of NCAA basketball bracketology with the suspenseful thrill of a book giveaway. Awesome, huh? I bet all four of my readers have just gone into a catatonic state.

I'm doing this for two reasons. One, because March Madness brackets are fun, fun, fun. Two, to promote good books because ideas have consequences. Three (oops, I lied), to see if I really only have those four now-comatose readers.

I've placed the fuller details of this competition here (which you'll also find on a tab above), but I'll give you a quick rundown of how it will work. I'm giving away a minimum of four books, but that could increase significantly depending on the number of bracket entries. The reason? Each entry (a max of three per person) costs $5 and the accumulated proceeds will go towards more books as well as gift certificates for the winning paid entry. Also, the entry with the closest guess to the total score of the championship game (regardless of the entry's overall success) wins an Amazon.com gift certificate. Now, isn't that a lot more interesting and fun than the ol' dry random number-generated book giveaway? I'd do it all out of my own pocket, but I'm afraid I would end up with 60 entries and $300 worth of books to buy. As Latrell Sprewell once said, "I've got a family to feed."

The bracket website doesn't go "live" for probably another couple of weeks (the NCAA announces the brackets on March 14th). After the 14th, you'll have until sometime prior to the first games on Thursday, March 18th, to make your picks (the "play-in" game doesn't count in this bracket). Until then, feel free to advertise this to friends who could benefit from some good books. If I get a substantial amount of entrants, it could be quite the windfall in books and/or gift certificates for one lucky person. For those who don't follow college basketball, I'll leave you with this encouragement to participate anyway: bracketology is all luck. Picking according to "sweetest uniform" might even work.