Time Magazine has announced its “Persons of the Year” and Bono gets the nod, along with Melinda and Bill Gates. Here is the introduction from the article:

The Good Samaritans

By Nancy Gibbs
For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME’s Persons of the Year.

Read the full article here (log-in required).

My dear wife just informed me that when she left for her workout this morning that she saw a mouse. No, I am not talking about a computer mouse, nor am I talking about Mickey Mouse. I am talking about a house mouse — the dreaded mus musculus!

This said mouse was seen trespassING on our garage — our attached garage — of our new home. Then she informed me that she had noticed some holes in our garbage bags (in the garage) the last couple weeks.

Well, mice can be cute. I’ve always liked the mice in Disney’s Cinderella (though they should have went for speech therapy as a kids like I did!), and who hasn’t been amused by the three blind mice or Roquefort the Mouse in the Aristocats?

That being said, I prefer my mice to be animated or connected to my computer. The first thing I did when informed about our possible infestation is research (I’m an academic, what can I say?!). The web is an excellent resource for the budding exterminators. One of the most valuable pieces of advice I came across for far is the following:

To control mice, you must “think like a mouse”

If only I had some Mickey Mouse ears… I would be wearing them now! Another web site recommended the “shock and awe” approach:

It’s better to trap intensively for a few days than to set only a few traps for a long time. Place the traps within travel routes, in corners, or near holes or nests. Traps set in pairs are more effective than single traps. A dab of crunchy peanut butter on the trigger is an enticing lure.

OK, I’m off to HomeDepot to pick up some “expandable trigger” mouse traps (did you know research has demonstrated they are more effective than traditional mouse traps?) and then to the grocery store for some crunchy peanut butter! (Maybe I’ll get some bananas too… I’m in the mood for a peanut butter and banana sandwich).

The game’s afoot… I will keep you updated!

Today’s Globe and Mail has an op/ed piece by Dan Falk entitled, “Did spin doctors write the Bible?” While it has a catchy title, the article does nothing more than rehash the typical “minimalists say this, maximalists say this” sort of argument while drawing some modern political implications.

Here is an excerpt:

It wasn’t long ago that the Bible was read not just as an inspirational and remarkable collection of stories, but as history — if not a literal account of the Israelite people, then at least a somewhat reliable dramatization.

But that confidence has eroded over the past century, and in the past decade it has nearly been destroyed. Abraham and Moses, it now seems, probably never lived at all. David and Solomon may have been tribal leaders with good PR, not great kings presiding over a vast empire.

The debate has become sharply polarized. On one side are “minimalists,” who dismiss the biblical narrative as a fiction constructed for political and ideological reasons many centuries after the events they claim to describe. Opposing them are “maximalists,” who assert that much of the narrative should be read as real history. And frequently, the fight really seems to be about present-day politics in the Middle East.

What I find interesting is that the “maximalists” are described as maintaining that “much of the narrative should be read as real history.” Is this really the case? What does “real history” mean? While there are definitely some who would want to read the historical accounts in the Bible as straightforward historical accounts of what actually happened, most if not all of the scholars active on both sides of the debate would not agree. It seems to me that it is more a matter of degree. While virtually everyone agrees that the biblical texts can be valuable historigraphic sources for the period in which they were purportedly written (e.g., Persian period or later), the question is whether or not they can be used to reconstruct earlier periods.

Lemche, Davies, and others would argue that they are not reliable as such (even though they would both agree that biblical texts like Samuel and Kings preserve some vaild pre-exilic historical information), while others would argue that the biblical historical books should not be relegated to the status of “secondary” historical sources (contra Lemche) but may be used critically and judicisouly as a source for reconstructing the history of Israel. Few “maximalist” scholars would maintain that the biblical texts “should be read as real history” — at least if one is to assume that by “real history” Falk means a straightforward play-by-play of what actually happened, i.e., the objective “scientific” history.

At any rate, the article is worth a read.

Jim West has decided to rub my nose in the fact that his blog is worth $77,341.98, while my blog is worthless — at least according to those mean people over at “How Much is My Blog Worth?” (Actually Jim was nice enough to note that my value — or lack thereof — “makes no sense at all to me”).

But, alas, a far superior authority thinks my blog is worth something! (and no, I’m not talking about my Mom — if I told her I had a blog, she would probably insist I go to the doctor!). Blogshares values my blog at $10,695.63 — and that is US dollars, which is like gold up here in Canada (actually the conversion rate isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still more!).

Yipee… now my kids will have Christmas presents after all!