A New Batch of iTunes U Podcasts...

Having caught up with my podcast listening over vacation it's time for some new on-line courses...

photo from photos8.com (you really should check out this site if you need stock photos)

The Book of Revelation almost didn't make the cut for inclusion in the Christian canon, and there's no telling how much happier Western Christianity might have been without it.  Having literally written the book on Revelation this course appears to be an in-depth exegesis by Dr. Louis A. Brighton (Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegetical Theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO) who apparently will be taking this troubling book very, very seriously.

Zombies! The Living Dead in Literature, from the University of Alabama promises to be a real hoot.

[Updated to add: Yep, it was a hoot.]

What Darwin Got Wrong by Professor Jerry Fodor may be worth a listen.  This lecture is apparently drawn on the controversial book of the same name by Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini.

The History of Modern Mathematics (1906) by David Eugene Smith is featured in the USF Lit2Go series.

In Tales of Vampires and the Undead, Dr. Rebecca Haynes will "look at tales of vampires and the undead with special reference to Central and Eastern Europe and some orthodox funeral customs used to placate and hopefully prevent their return as revenants to the world of the living."

[This was actually a quite scholarly lecture on the European folklore surrounding the topic, from which Bram Stoker drew his inspiration.]

Religion in History: Conflict, Conversion and Coexistence is offered by The Open University.

[I've also added Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Stoker's Dracula, both from the USF Lit2Go program.]

As always, these courses are free to anyone with an iTunes account or (in most cases) by visiting the host institutions.

No Excuses

My Hoyt Havoc and I were inseparable this last week...

Purchased used from a very serious bowhunter who set it up as a pure hunting tool, my Hoyt Havoc XT 2000 dual cam compound bow is compact, very fast, and extremely quiet.  It's capable of such fine accuracy that I was forced to named it "No Excuses" after its first trip to the range.  I used it that first season to collect my Second Chance Buck.  About the only fault I find with it is common to all compound bows - the metal riser sucks the heat from my hands in cold weather.  This season I gave up on light arrows and mechanical broadheads.  I put Three Rivers Archery weight tubes in my Beman ICS Hunter carbon arrows and installed Muzzy MX-3 broadheads.  I zero'd the pins at 20, 30, and 40 yards (this last distance is intended for challenging practice rather than use in the field).  I was running the bow cranked down to it's full 70 pound pull for practice but backed off a full turn mid-week; a fella needs a bow he can draw without a warm-up once he's out hunting.  I saw the ten point buck I'm interested in three different times this last week but not once did he grace me with a shot.  One evening he loitered for 45 minutes in the vicinity of my buddy Greg's stand while I watched a mess of does from my ambush spot.  Problem was Greg was hunting does and I was after the buck.  Guess that's why we call it hunting instead of deer shooting.  Our host Tim shot a dandy buck his one morning in the river bottom.  Greg tagged a nice doe on Friday.  Alas, I have nothing to show for my efforts...yet.  I have until the end of December to try again...