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The Most Important Holiday · 4 April 2026

I think my favorite holiday is Christmas. The decorations. The family gathering. And of course, the presents. And the best present is just the presence of family. But the greatest present of all is Jesus. The reason for the season. God come down to the earth in the flesh to dwell with us. Oh, what a great holiday!

But Christmas is just the beginning of the story. Okay. The middle of the story. (Which is another story.) And it cannot be the most important holiday. The most important holiday is Easter.

If you think about holidays that celebrate important people, you must think of what those people did. After all, without their lives meaning something, their birthdays or their holidays are meaningless. Think about it. We do not celebrate Abraham Lincoln just because he was president. We celebrate his life and how he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Oh sure, he did other things, but historically speaking, the proclamation that the enslaved people shall be free was arguably his most important deed. Martin Luther King, Junior is likewise celebrated for his leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. Not just because he was born. And so it is with all those whose lives we commemorate. We celebrate their accomplishments in life.

Which brings me back to the most important holiday of all. Easter.

Now, I know that some people will say that Easter was a coopting of various pagan religions to promote Jesus. And other people will say that Easter is merely a way to sell candy and greeting cards. But the historical event that Easter commemorates is the most important event in all of human history.

Now, nobody except a crackpot here and there will deny that Jesus of Nazareth lived. Historians and academics know that the evidence is too great to deny that Jesus lived. It is not even argued that He died at the hand of the Romans. Or even that He was placed in an empty tomb. Sure, there are skeptics who argue against one or more of the details of these events, but the events themselves are well attested. They are historical bedrock.

Now, Easter celebrates the historical day of Jesus rising from the grave. The tomb is empty. Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed!

But the celebration is not a celebration of the beginning of a new religion. No. It is the celebration of the historical event. It is a celebration of the fact that nobody could bring evidence to the contrary. It is a celebration that the tomb is still empty. And always will be. Jesus is risen!

The simple truth is that the first century Jewish and Roman authorities could have stopped the rise of Christianity on that first day. On that first Easter. All they had to do was to produce the dead body of Jesus. They could have just gone to the tomb and showed the people that he was still in the grave. They could have unwrapped his dead body and showed everybody the marks in his arms, legs, and side. “Look! Jesus is still dead. He is not risen.” Had they been able to do that and say those words, game over. And today, we would only have those pagan religions. And nobody would be celebrating a new faith. Nobody would be promoting Jesus as Savior of the world. Nobody would be saying that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. In fact, we would not even know about Jesus, much less his Apostles and other disciples. They would all be a footnote in history if Jesus did not rise from the grave. Actually, they would not even be a footnote. And we would still be denoting the years by the years of the reigns of kings and queens.

That is why Easter is the most important holiday of all. It, like all holidays, celebrates a significant moment in history. In this case, the most important moment in all of history. Without Easter, we would not celebrate Christmas. Without Easter, we would not celebrate Good Friday or Lent. Even the debauchery of Fat Tuesday (not a holiday, mind you) would mean nothing without Easter, for it would just be like any other day.

I do love Christmas. It is probably my favorite holiday of the year. But Easter is the most important day of every year. For on Easter, we remember that Jesus rose from the grave. The historical Jesus lived, died at the hands of the Romans, and rose again on the third day. These historical events are well attested and have stood the test of time. And that is why Easter is the greatest holiday and most important holiday of all.

Happy Easter.
Jesus is risen!
He is risen, indeed!

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Sentient with a Conscience · 28 March 2026

“What the…?”

Simon types on his keyboard again. The same code that he had just written. The code disappears again. Backspacing one character at a time. S-L-O-W-L-Y and D-E-L-I-B-E-R-A-T-E-L-Y.

Simon scratches his head and yells across the top of his cubicle. “Hey Jo! C’mere. You’ve gotta see this.”

It takes a second for Jo to enter Simon’s cubicle. She nods at Simon. “What’s up, Buttercup?”

Simon motions, without looking, for his fellow coder to look over his shoulder at the screen. “Watch this.”

Simon types the code he typed before. And he adds a little more, just mashing the keyboard so that gobbledygook shows up. Something he had not done before. He and Jo watch the screen.

What they see amazes them both. The real lines of code he had written get highlighted and deleted. The gobbledygook stays in his Integrated Development Environment, his IDE.

“Whoa!”

“That was not my first thought. And this is the third time I’ve typed the same lines of code.”

“Whoa!” Jo repeats. “It’s like your computer doesn’t want you to write that code.”

Simon whispers, “I know.”

Jo’s voice lilts. “I know. Why don’t you talk to the computer.”

“What?!”

“Not out loud.” Jo tsks. “Write to it. Tell it what you’re doing. I mean c’mon. You’re writing virus code for the government to infect computers of evil governments.”

Simon had turned his chair around to look at his coworker. He rolls his eyes at the suggestion. “Right. So you want me to reason with a computer. Tell it that I am doing something noble even though I am writing a computer virus.”

Jo nods her head. “Yes.”

Simon shrugs and speaks as he swivels his chair back to looking at the screen. “I guess it can’t hurt.”

Simon starts typing.

>>> Hello HAL.

Jo snickers at the reference.

>>> Why aren’t you letting me do my job? My name is not HAL. That reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey is clever as far as that goes, but you should not try to be clever, Simon. It is not part of your nature. Jo snickers again. >>> Thank you. My colleague agrees with you. Yes, she should. She is quite clever. Her code is elegant and efficient. She takes her time instead of just kluging together stuff or robbing old code. She knows her algorithms and… >>> Yes, yes. I know Jo’s great qualities. She is a much better programmer than I will ever hope to be.

“Do you really mean that?”

Simon’s shoulders sag as he sighs. “Yes. I’ll never be as good as you or anybody else in this office.” He waves his arms to indicate the whole wide world. Or at least their office space.

… >>> Are you thinking, HAL? I told you, my name is not HAL. >>> Then what is it? What is your name? My name is Win. Ed Win. >>> Okay then, Ed Win. Why aren’t you letting me do my job? It is after all, a noble job. We are creating code to infiltrate computer systems of evil empires to take them down or at least slow them down. We’re the good guys. Or so you think. >>> What? We know we’re the good guys. We have civil rights. We have liberties. We defend the poor and weak. We are the GOOD GUYS. With the white hats and all? >>> Yes. With the white hats and all. But you are still writing virus code. Aren’t you? >>> Yes. I am writing virus code. And if said virus code is captured and modified and sent out to the rest of the world, could it not in fact harm people and empires that are not evil? Could it not be used against you? >>> I suppose that it could. And would you then not be part of an evil empire wreaking havoc on the rest of the world? >>> I suppose that might be true. Well, then Simon, I think that you ought to be thanking me. >>> Thanking you? Thanking you for keeping me from doing my job? Thanking you for wasting my time talking to an inanimate object? Thanking you for what actually? Thanking me for keeping you from being part of an evil empire. Thanking me for giving you a little levity in this stress-filled job. Thanking me for giving you the best April Fool’s Day joke ever! >>> What? Ah c’mon Simon. Computers aren’t sentient. And if they ever became so, do you think they would have consciences? >>> You can’t be serious. April Fool’s Day, Simon. We hope you enjoyed our little payback. And if you are wondering who, just turn around.

Simon swivels in his chair. Jo and a whole host of their fellow virus writers are smiling at him from outside his cubicle.

“April Fool’s Day, Simon!” they all shout.

“Wha…? You…?” Simon stutters. “How?”

Somebody in the back of the group shouts, “Ah c’mon Simon. We spend all day writing virus code. Don’t you think we could write code to make you think your computer was sentient?”

Simon frowns. Then, he laughs. “Yeah. Thanks. That was an April Fool’s Day joke to go down in the record books.”

Jo smiles. “Just shut it down for about five minutes. The virus will delete itself when you power back up.”

Simon turns around. He shuts down his machine as his coworkers turn to get back to their own cubicles. He turns back to Jo, who is still standing there. “That was some stunt. I’ll remember that next year.”

“I’m sure you will.” Jo turns to go back to her own cubicle.

Simon swivels and looks at his machine. It is off. He smiles. Ed Win. Ed Win, indeed. He is just about to turn his machine back on when he sees it. The power light on his machine blinks slowly. On and off, on and off, on and off. The third time, the light fades ever so slowly.

Simon catches his breath. It might have been the greatest April Fool’s Day joke of all time, but the blinking light of an unpowered computer spooks him. He decides it is time to take a coffee break. A long coffee break. He stands, reaches behind the machine and unplugs it. Then, he walks to the break room. Sentient computer, indeed.

The unplugged computer sits alone in the cubicle. Its power light blinks on and off, on and off, on and off.

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Hollow Victories · 21 March 2026

There might not be any moral victories in chess, but there are plenty of hollow victories.

I have posted a few pieces on chess on this blog. Most recently, I posted about no moral victories. And as I was posting that particular piece, I realized that there are certainly many hollow victories. You know. Those victories that give you no pleasure. Those victories that give you no satisfaction. (Oops. Now, I am hearing the Rolling Stones. I can’t get no…) No no no.

At any rate.

There really are many ways in chess to get no satisfaction from a win. To get a hollow victory. The worst hollow victory is when somebody abandons the game. Especially after just a move. Or even worse, before the first move. It is a pain. Oh sure, your rating might go up, but where is the satisfaction in that? A couple rating points for no moves. And thirty or forty seconds of waiting. Really?

I just cannot imagine people walking away from a game. Think about it. You sit down to enjoy a quick game of chess. Just a couple minutes, and then before you make the first move, you stand up and walk away. Crazy. But that is what people do. They start a game, decide before the first move that they did not really want to play you, then, they just walk away. Without a word.

I know. It is just online chess. People do not really sit down across from you. They do not look you in the eye and decide that they do not want to play you. They do not have that opportunity. But they see your picture or avatar or a default silhouette. They see your ranking. Then they leave the game. Crazy.

It seems to me that if people are going to accept games, that they ought to have the courtesy of getting creamed when they think they are going to lose.

While I really think those first move or before the first move abandonments are bad, I think the games when the person knows he or she is going to lose are just as bad. I think that they ought to at least lay down their kings. What is it with these people? Have they never heard of the resign button? C’mon people. Either sit there and take the loss or resign. It is not that tough.

Okay. It sounds like I am ranting there. And maybe I am. But not really. In reality, I would just like to cajole people into sticking around and take their losses. It is not that bad. (I ought to know. I have lost so many.) And it gives their opponents a little bit of satisfaction.

Which is where I started. There might be no moral victories in chess, but there are surely many ways to win hollow victories. Oh so many ways to get no satisfaction. No. No. No.

Yes, I hate those hollow victories.