The Canon PG-30 ink cartridge....

I have a Canon printer that uses the PG-30 black ink cartridges; I’ve always wanted to try ink refill kits to save a bit of money, so this was my first attempt. I ordered the kit from eBay for about $12 — all I had to do was find a refill kit with my print cartridge model listed.  The kit said it would come with all of the tools needed (a syringe, screw, ink refill, and instructions).  Sure enough, the kit arrived a couple of days later and the fun began.

The kit included a bottle of ink, a syringe and needle, and a small screw with a twist-handle. The instructions said to peel back the label on top of the cartridge and locate the filling hole, then use the screw to open it up. The label was super sticky and a lot harder to peel of than you would think. I finally gave up and scratched a hole in the middle where the filling hole was supposed to be. Using the tiny screw to drill a wider hole in the top of the hard plastic was difficult and took me about 20 minutes. If you had access to power tools the process would probably be a whole lot easier and faster.

The instructions said to use the syringe and slowly fill the cartridge with 10ml of ink. I made sure to take my time and injected the 10ml over a course of 2-4 minutes or so. After that, everything seemed to be fine so I re-inserted the cartridge.

After running a few cleaning cycles, the printer seemed to be working like magic again! And I still have a bottle with enough ink to refill the cartridge another 5-6 times or so, all for $12. Isn’t eBay great?

In Water Wars, Joshua Ortega discusses the issue of bottled water usage as having a negative impact on the consumer, environment and economy. The consumer would be affected because bottled water is often far less sanitary than tap water. Plastic used to manufacture the bottles is harmful to the environment, both in terms of production of the bottles and improper disposal after being used. Artificially created demand for bottled water could lead to the privatization of a countries water supply which would affect the price and quality of water in a negative way.
A common misconception is that bottled water is supposedly more sanitary than tap water. Bottled water companies use their advertising dollars to convince the consumers that because their water comes from a bottle, it has higher quality standards. In reality, as Ortega points out, there are actually fewer regulations on bottled water than tap water – at least in the United States. Part of the reason for this is because tap water is a public resource and data on the quality of the resource is available publicly. Private bottled water companies are not required to make sanitation data available to the public.
Bottles for water are most commonly made from Polyethylene Terephthalate plastic (PET) which is a non-environmentally friendly material for a number of reasons. Ortega highlights the fact that it takes “17.5 kilograms of water to produce only 1 kilogram of PET” (10) and that the production of this plastic releases harmful greenhouse gasses into the environment. These plastic bottles are recyclable, however too many of them are still ending up rotting in landfills. Ortega says that only 10% of plastic bottles produced will actually be recycled.
The privatization of water could have a strong negative impact on societies around the globe. Ortega cites that “when the French privatized their water services, customer rates went up 150 percent within a few years” (19). Another issue with water privatization is that data pertaining to the quality of water is not made publicly available (much like the way that information about bottled water is not available).  The danger with allowing a private company to manage water is that the company will not be focused on providing a quality resource but instead they will focus on their own profits which could quickly lead to inflated prices and reduced quality of water.

Tap water in the US is a public resource that is provided and monitored by the government. For American citizens the choice between bottled water and tap water shouldn’t be based on the quality of the water supplied because, according to an article released in the FDA Consumer Magazine in 2002, tap water and bottled water have nearly identical regulations in the US. Henry Kim, Ph.D is quoted in the article, “Generally, over the years, the FDA has adopted EPA standards for tap water as standards for bottled water” (Bullers 2002).  The article, titled “Bottled Water: Better Than The Tap?” by Anne Bullers, argues that in some cases it may even be more beneficial to drink tap water because tap water often has added fluoride. “Many communities have elected to add fluoride to drinking water to promote strong teeth and prevent tooth decay in residents,” Bullers points out (Bullers 2002). Despite the high standards the government has set for tap water, there are still some areas where tap water may have an unusual color or chlorinated taste. An important point to note, according to Bullers, is that harmful contaminants in water are often unable to be seen or tasted. Any unpleasant taste or color that comes with tap water can be easily fixed with an inexpensive filtration system attached to your tap faucet.
While bottled water may be convenient, it has high environmental costs associated with its production and disposal. In an article for National Geographic, James Owen cites a report released by Earth Policy Institute (EPI) in 2006 which “says global consumption of bottled water doubled between 1999 and 2004, reaching 41 billion gallons (154 billion liters) annually” (Owen 2006) Producing the plastic for all of these bottles takes one and a half million barrels of oil each year according to the EPI report.  This fact alone should (and does) raise concerns about the impact of consumer habits in the US. If the quality of water coming from the tap is the same as the quality of water sold to us in bottles is identical, we should consider the difference in cost of each method.  Owen points out, however, that in developing countries safe tape water is not always as widely available and bottled water may be the only source of drinking water available. In these countries we should focus our attention on creating a reliable plumbing infrastructure since importing bottled water is not practical in the long run.
The environmental toll of bottled water continues beyond that caused by the production and distribution of the bottles.  It turns out, according to Nancy Cohen from NPR, that out of the 20% or so of bottles that are actually recycled, many of them are shipped across the globe yet again! The international market to recycle PET plastic is huge, “the Chinese are coming to the U.S. to buy nearly 40 percent of the bottles Americans recycle,” Cohen says (Cohen 2007). Because so much of American recyclables are exported to China, some US based recycling companies are actually resorting to purchasing plastic bottles from Canada and Mexico.  Because of this, additional oil is being consumed to transport those used bottles yet again. According to NPR, these recycling bottles are being turned into “carpets, clothing, automotive parts and even new bottles” which at least reduces the number of bottles that wind up in landfills (Cohen 2007).

Some people might argue that bottled water is a more practical solution than re-usable bottles because they offer the convenience of being thrown away instead of having to be carried back home. Bottled waters portability makes it a popular drink for events such as picnics or other outdoor events where tap water is not normally available.  For some countries bottled water is also a profitable product to export to wealthy nations such as the US. For other countries, bottled water is also the only form of clean drinking water available and so having it available in mass quantities is highly beneficial.

Americans should be concerned with this issue because it’s yet another instance where a very small portion of the world’s population is consuming a very large amount of the resources available to all humans on the planet. If every nation were to generate as many used plastic bottles as America, we would very quickly find that there is not nearly enough oil to keep producing bottles and that there is also not nearly enough space to put them all when we’re done with them.
The battle between the use of bottled water and tap water is one that each and every one of us plays a major role in every day. It is not up to the government or water supply companies to determine the dominant source of water, but rather it is determined by consumer choices on the large scale. Bottled water is not a bad thing – in many situations it is far more convenient and practical to drink bottled water than to look for a drinking fountain or tap. The big problem is when people begin to drink bottled water regularly as a part of their everyday lifestyle; grabbing a bottle of water on the way out the door isn’t really that much more convenient than filling up a re-usable bottle from your sink and taking it with you, and it definitely is more harmful for the environment.

The first step to bringing about a change in American society is for everyone to make small changes in their lives and encourage others to do the same. For college students, this means eliminating the habit of buying bottled water in bulk as a primary source of drinking water and investing in a filter (then actually using it).  By switching to a filter in my own dorm room I have reduced the number of plastic bottles that I throw away each week from more than ten to only one or two, if any. Over the course of a semester I estimate that I will have saved a couple hundred bottles and a considerable amount of money. Making this small change in my lifestyle may not cause a huge impact in the large scale, but if I can convince friends and neighbors to do the same then, slowly, the change may one day propagate to the community on a larger scale.
Works Cited

Johnson, June. Global Issues, Local Arguments. New York: Pearson Education, Inc, 2007.

Christiansen Bullers, Anne . “Bottled Water: Better Than the Tap?” FDA Consumer magazine. Aug 2002. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 8 Dec 2008 <http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/2002/402_h2o.html>.

Owen, James. “Bottled Water Isn’t Healthier Than Tap, Report Reveals.” 24 Feb 2006. National Geographic. 8 Dec 2008 <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/
0224_060224_bottled_water.html>.

Cohen, Nancy. “For Empty Water Bottles, There’s an Afterlife.” The Water Debate Continues: Bottled vs. Tap. 11 june 2007. NPR. 8 Dec 2008 <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12173651>.

A possible solution is to develop more environmentally friendly shipping options such as sea freight options that run on renewable energy resources. This option would be expensive and take a long time to implement. The article warns that implementing taxes on fuel used for international travel could backfire because corporations may switch to even less clean shipping options such as trucks or trains.

Another alternative to international shipping and global supply chains is to encourage economies to rely on products that are produced entirely locally. The article, however, argues that this option may be just as harmful to the environment in some cases.

Unfortunately, any action that is taken to reduce the environmental impact of shipping will ultimately affect the cost of living around the world. The price of making changes in the production methods of products will trickle down to the consumer and result in higher prices for products.  Because a higher price equals less sales, no corporation wants to be the first to take steps towards this change. The only thing that will eventually lead to a change is if enough consumers and citizens pressure their governments and large companies to make the necessary changes.

According to Wealth and Happiness some of the leading contributors to increased happiness in society include freedom, acceptance, and gratitude. Previous studies had only linked wealth to happiness because they had only examined levels of wealth in proportion to happiness without considering other factors that may have influenced the data. An interesting concept is that of “diminishing returns to economic progress” – that means that after a certain point of economic development, further economic development will have less and less impact on the happiness of society.

Another interesting concept is the link between gratitude and happiness; the act of reflecting and being thankful seems to improve one’s happiness significantly. This is true in both the large scale of society and on the small scale of our personal everyday lives. The article suggests that religion, or any similar positive belief system, can play a very large role in this aspect of happiness.

As global citizens we must ask ourselves how we should balance our efforts to achieve world happiness; at what point should a wealthy country stop focusing on developing itself and begin to focus on helping other countries? Because of diminishing returns it would make logical sense that after a certain point it would be counter-productive to advance ones own society beyond its current state if it is already very well off. 

The quest for happiness will always be ongoing both on a global scale and on a personal scale for all of us.  On the global scale, it is up to great scientists and philosophers to theorize about what elements make societies happy and implement those ideas into communities throughout the world. On the personal scale, it is up to each individual person to take the time to think about their own happiness and realize what makes them happy. As the article Wealth and Happiness suggests, it is the person that has learned to be grateful for what they already have that will be happier in life than the person who is always wanting more.

Alfonso Cuaron’s film Children of Men utilizes an unusual editing style to immerse the viewer in the world of the film and create a sense of reality that would ordinarily not exist in a traditional Hollywood movie. Long takes, and more specifically the absence of cuts, are used to achieve a documentary-like feel; action scenes which traditionally would have many fast paced shots and close ups are shown entirely through a single master shot. The use of a single shot advances the world of the film by maintaining an open frame throughout the movie. Where cuts are used they are carefully placed to create meaning between images that might not exist if the same scene were shown only through a master shot. All of the cinematic and editing choices in Children of Men come together to create a film about a world not too far off from our own in such a way that the viewer can connect with the world in a believable way.

The most noticeable editing style throughout Children of Men is the lack of cuts as the camera follows Theo throughout the world of the film. This documentary-like style gives the feeling that the world being shown is a world that actually exists on its own. In the opening scene Theo walks out of a coffee shop which is blown up only moments later. With traditional Hollywood style editing the film would cut to various wide shots to establish the location outside of the coffee shop, but with this single-shot style the camera pans around to show us different details of the world without forcing our attention on to specific shots with a cut. By eliminating cuts, the viewer is given a sense that the events taking place on screen are completely unscripted and the camera just happens to be there as they are happening. 

Traditional Hollywood editing limits what is shown to specific sections of a room or street; the camera cuts between a few set angles and rarely shows 360 degrees of an environment or location. Replacing cuts with a master shot that pans around creates a sense of openness; the world exists wherever the camera happens to turn and it is easy to believe that the world exists even beyond what is shown or what is just out of frame. One example of this is at the very start of the film where Theo walks out of a coffee shop. The handheld camera follows behind Theo and looks around the city just as someone stepping out for the first time would be distracted by the trivial details of the city. This free movement creates a sense that the world exists in its entirety and if the camera were to pan just a little bit more we wouldn’t see the edge of a movie set. Instead of cutting back to Theo the camera turns and catches up with the spot he has stopped at on the street. The lack of cutting in this scene creates a sense of spontaneity; we feel like we haven’t missed anything that has happened and we know exactly how much time has elapsed since Theo left the shop before it was blown to bits. We also don’t feel like we are being tricked or shown something that hasn’t actually happened because the camera moves as if someone is holding it and guiding it naturally in an un-scripted way (especially when the camera “runs” towards the explosion as if to see what happened).

Children of Men is edited and presented in a very linear fashion. Every scene leads into the scene following it and no time is omitted from the story.  Flashbacks are not used. Each time the film cuts from one scene to the next it is not implied that events happened in between the scene that just finished and the scene that is starting. This style also adds to the sense that the audience is being shown a world that is real; the film shows a complete story from start to finish and nothing is left out. Because nothing is omitted the viewer is also given a sense that everything is happening in real time and that we follow Theo on every step of his journey throughout the film. The camera movement and editing also keep our attention on Theo; everything is presented in a very subjective manner by the end of the film. An example of this subjective camera movement is the scene where the car Theo is traveling in is attacked and the group has to escape by driving backwards. When the car finally comes to a stop the camera gets out with Theo as he exits the car. The camera then pans to the road and frames awkwardly on the dead officers before cutting, an edit that draws attention to the way the group murdered the officers and then fled.

Traditional Hollywood action scenes are edited to create a very fast pace and rhythm where close ups are ordered to draw attention to the action itself. One of the most innovative scenes in Children of Men is close to the end of the film where Theo is fleeing through the streets of a raging battle and makes his way up the stairs of a building to find Julian with the baby. The absence of cuts in this sequence ultimately makes the scene more effective because the viewer’s attention, and the camera movement, is focused entirely on Theo and his survival as he dodges heavy fire. Cutting to different shots of surrounding soldiers or explosions would draw attention away from Theo and focus it on the war itself which is unimportant to the story which is centered on Theo reaching his goal of getting Julian and the baby safely to The Tomorrow. The lack of cuts also allows the viewer to feel like they are traveling alongside Theo in real time. Immediately following this scene, which is the longest shot in the film, is a sequence where editing is used to create meaning between various images that wouldn’t exist in a single long take.

As Theo and Julian walk slowly through a battleground that has frozen for a moment in time near the end of the movie they pass by the soldiers that are discovering the baby for the first time. The story is told through a series of cuts between Theo, Julian, the baby, and the reaction of those they are passing by. The use of cuts to move back and forth between the baby and those watching as it passes by draws attention to specific groups of people that are watching the baby. As they are progressing down the stairs Theo and Julian reach a solider that sees the baby and orders his fellow soldiers to cease firing. Meaning is created by the order and timing of cuts in this sequence; we see Theo and Julian, then we see the soldier ordering for cease fire, then we see a close up of the baby as he is carried down the stairs. A long shot would not have achieved the same effect for this particular scene because by actively cutting back and forth between the baby and onlookers the viewers attention is focused on the relationship between these groups of people instead of the scene as a whole.

Alfonso uses many new and innovative techniques in Children of Men to successfully create a sense of reality where the viewer is able to see the world of the film as if it were their own world. Carefully implemented editing techniques keep the viewer focused on the important characters and emotions throughout the film and.  The stylistic choices made by Alfonso ultimately allow the viewer to connect with the film on a more natural level instead of being overwhelmed by complex editing that would distract from the film.  

Through careful organization of story elements, the film Memento successfully helps the viewer to connect and sympathize with the main character, Leonard, who is suffering from an unusual memory condition that the viewer would not ordinarily be able to relate with. By seeing the story backwards, the viewer is unaware of events that have already taken place earlier in the story, much the way that Leonard is unable to remember them. Careful placement and movement of the camera throughout the film further connects the viewer with Leonard by showing the world from his point of view. Repetition of images and scenes also immerses the viewer in Leonard’s world by creating a sense of déjà-vu which causes the viewer to question what it might be like for Leonard to see the same thing repeatedly and not remember it. The entire plot structure of Memento is crucial to the success of the film because without it the viewer would be unable to understand the story on a personal level.

The plot of Memento is arranged such that the story is presented to the viewer backwards; each consecutive scene depicts what preceded the scene that was just shown. In the beginning of the movie Leonard talks with the motel manager about his condition. Although this has happened many times before, the audience is seeing the exchange for the very first time, evoking the same feeling of newness that Leonard has because he doesn’t remember any of the previous interactions. At the same time that we are shown the main story backwards, the film also intercuts clips from the beginning of the story in chronological order which are separated from the rest of the movie because they are in black and white. These scenes gives the viewer background information about the things that Leonard is subconsciously remembering and basing his life off of, like the story of Sammy Jenkins. By alternating between clips of the past and present the film also shows how the tattoos and notes Leonard has are his way of consciously communicating with his future self. Throughout the film there are notes that have been crossed out which raises the notion that Leonard’s system for remembering things might be flawed. The end of the movie finally reveals that Leonard is consciously aware of the flaws in his system as we see him writing himself a false note about a license plate number that he knows he will trust later. Because of the way the film is structured, this revelation serves as a conclusive ending to the plot even though it is technically the beginning of the story.

To further immerse the viewer within Leonard’s world, many of the shots are set up so that we see the world as Leonard would.  One example of this is the scene where Leonard goes to find Dodd in his motel room and sets up an ambush for him. When he forgets where he is and gets in the shower Dodd enters the bathroom. For this scene the camera stays inside the shower stall and all we see is Leonard’s face and his view of the shower curtain until it’s opened, revealing Dodd to the audience at the exact moment that Leonard sees him for the first time.

When Leonard discovers his tattoos throughout the film the audience is seeing the tattoos for the first time just as Leonard is finding them on his body.  The cameras slow movement suggests that Leonard is going through this moment of revelation as if he hasn’t seen his tattoos before even though he knows he has. Throughout the film the camera is consistently closer to Leonard whenever he is talking to anyone else to give the audience a feeling of familiarity and comfort with Leonard. There are also very few moments where we see anything other than what Leonard is doing or what he is talking about. Near the end of the film there are a few clips of Leonard and his wife that are intercut with the ending sequence. These clips are quick and fragmented, telling no story, and are representative of the moments Leonard remembers of being with his wife. These clips also show how memory in general is flawed and that only fragments of things are easily recalled, just as Leonard explains to Teddy early in the film.

Repetition is used throughout the film to create a feeling of déjà-vu which helps the viewer to get a sense of how Leonard re-creates his understanding of the world each time he looks at his pictures and notes. One tattoo we see over and over reads “remember Sammy Jenkins” and each time it is shown there is a voice over of Leonard reciting what it says. This repetitive style causes the audience to think about what it might be like for Leonard to see tattoos like these and not remember why they’re there. At the same time it also seems to support the idea that one can learn things subconsciously through repetition and that Leonard just might be able to progress and learn new things about his condition over time. 

Another recurring scene is when Leonard wakes up in bed not knowing where he is. As the film progresses, quick shots of the night his wife was murdered are frequently shown while Leonard is sleeping or before he wakes up. Because of the organizational structure of the film the audience rarely knows where Leonard will wake up in the next scene and so the film tends to tease the audience with scenes that could potentially be of Leonard waking up the night of his wife’s murder but they always end up being something completely different. Again, this mirrors the idea that Leonard has no idea where he is each time he wakes up and it allows the viewer to also experience that feeling of not knowing.

Repetition is incredibly important at the beginning and ending of the film where the scenes outside of the abandoned warehouse are almost identical. In each scene, Leonard’s car pulls up and parks in the same spot. The camera is also in the same position and the same music is playing. This is notably significant because in each scene he is killing someone that he thinks is the John G. he is looking for. The ending of the film (which, we must realize, is also the beginning of the story) finally reveals that Leonard consciously creates a puzzle for his future self to solve as he copies down the license plate number that has been repeated numerous times throughout the film as a fact. This license plate number is in fact that of a man named Teddy who, as the audience is led to believe, probably had nothing to do with the murder. It is at this point that it becomes clear that the film is not about discovering who murdered Leonard’s wife, but rather it is about how Leonard copes with his condition and how he ultimately realizes that he must lie to himself in order to be happy because he knows that in the future he will believe whatever he tells himself to be true.

Without the organizational patterns used in the film, the viewer would be unable to fully understand Leonard or empathize with what he endures throughout the film. The use of repetition and subjective camera movement also reinforces the subconscious connection the viewer forms with Leonard throughout the film by hiding things he does not know or understand and by showing more of the things he is familiar with. Memento is an excellent example of a film where the plot differs from the story in such a way that is essential for telling that story to an audience. 

 To play Warcraft III without a CD all you need to do is connect to battle.net and download the latest patch file. After that’s finished you will no longer need the CD to play!

Running Starcraft without the CD, unfortunately, is a bit more challenging. If you read the patch notes for patch 1152 then it explains how to do it, but since you didn’t I’ll explain it here…

If you have the Brood War expansion pack….

1. Insert your Brood War CD into your computer.
2. Navigate to the files on the CD and copy the file called “install.exe” to the starcraft program folder (this should be “C:\Program Files\Starcraft”)
3. Rename the file you just copied to be called “BroodWar.mpq” — note that you need to change the file extension from .exe to .mpq.
4. Remove the CD and play Starcraft without it!

If you do not have Brood War installed, simply follow the instructions above but when you copy “install.exe” from the CD you should rename it to “Starcraft.mpq”

Two months ago I signed up for a stamps.com account and figured I had nothing to lose and at the very least I’d get some free stuff. Sure enough, my account started off with $5 of free postage. Great! I was able to ship an item I had sold on eBay just fine. A few days later my free “stamps.com supply kit” arrived in the mail. This package included one sheet of 2 half page shipping labels, a sheet of odd sized labels, and a sheet of standard 0.41 cent sized labels (all of which could be printed on to from the stamps.com program). After using the software for a while I even bought some additional postage and shipped a few more items using their software.

So what about the scale? Well the scale isn’t actually free.  You need to pay shipping (roughly $6)  and even then it isn’t a great scale because the max weight is 5 lbs AND you need to connect it to your computer to read the weight from within the stamps.com program (forcing you to use their software if you want to use the scale).  I opted out of the “free” scale option.

25 days later, when I decided it was time to cancel my account, I found the catch. During the signup process I was asked for credit card information; I figured it would be no problem, I could just cancel my account before the trial month ended. But with many companies these days, the folks at stamps.com wanted to make closing an account as difficult as possible. The website instructs users wishing to cancel their accounts to call their support number during business hours. The next day I gave them a call and stated that I wished to cancel my account – “Sure I can help you with that” the representative said cheerfully. When asked my reason for canceling I explained that I didn’t use the service enough to justify paying a monthly fee. So this salesperson said (without waiting for my input) that they were converting my account down to a lower pricing plan (somewhere around 8 bucks a month, down from the standard 18 a month) . They also informed me that they would waive an extra month of service fees so I could re-evaluate their software and if I still wanted to cancel in a month I could do so. I shrugged and thanked the representative.

One month later (and after using up the remaining 30-something cents in my account) I called them back again. Same story, except this time upon learning I wished to cancel the sales person said “sure, I can help you with that” and proceeded to inform me that they would be adding $20 of free postage to my account and waiving my service fee for another month.

So far I’ve tried to cancel my account twice and I’m still a customer of stamps.com… at least they keep sending me free stuff each time I call…  I’ll update this entry in another month when I call them back for the third time…

This essay was written by Ben Cole.

Martin Luther and his 95 theses generated enormous controversy during the time of the Reformation. His idea of salvation through faith was vastly different from the view of the Catholic Church which started a great deal of dispute which would eventually become the cause of many great turning points in history, including the creation of different denominations of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Catholic Church.

As a young adult, Martin Luther searched for spiritual identity and worried about what would happen after he died. He attended Erfurt where he studied philosophy and classical literature. During his studies he narrowly escaped death during a thunder storm as he was traveling from Erfurt to Eisleben as lightning struck a tree near where he was standing. Fearing for his life, he vowed on the spot to become a monk saying, “Help me, dear St. Anna! I will become a monk.[1]“ On July 17, 1505 Martin Luther and his closest friends went with him to the Augustinian cloister where he left the world as he knew it to become a monk as he had promised[2].

During his first year at the monastery Martin Luther was taught how to behave like a monk and how to act in the presence of his superiors. He lived by strict rules and was forced to obey whatever was asked of him. Upon the completion of this year he was admitted as a monk where he planned to spend the rest of his life without property. He diligently practiced every ritual and ceremony that existed and was seen by many as a great example of a monk. However, Luther was not satisfied with his spiritual self and finally confesses:

“For so long a time I laboured and tortured myself with fasts, vigils, prayers, etc. that thereby I might attain this assurance. But, for my whole life, my heart could not be assured that God was well pleased with the work I had done, or had certainly heard my prayer… For fifteen years I was just such a pious monk; and yet never advanced so far as to be able to say, ‘Now I am sure that God is gracious to me,’” [3]

Luther was warned by fellow scholars that it was not wise to trust his own judgments and interpretations of scripture. Despite these warnings he continued to study the bible and gave lectures on various books of the bible at the Wittenberg University and eventually became a priest.[4] Through his studies, Luther came across a verse in the book of Romans, verse 17 which said “For it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, the just shall live by faith.”[5] Through studying this verse he came to the conclusion that the Churches interpretation of scripture had strayed from the actual meaning of the bible – that salvation could be achieved through faith alone. Though he believed this, he still believed in the Church and had no intentions of any kind of opposition to the Church.

In 1516 Johann Tetzel, a German Dominican friar, began selling indulgences[6] for the Roman Catholic Church near where Luther was living.[7] Luther began preaching against Tetzel’s indulgences when people stopped coming to confessions and finally, in an attempt to spark intellectual debate, posted his famous 95 theses on the university church door on October 31, 1517. This date became the “birthday” of the Protestant Reformation.[8] The purpose of his theses was simply to address the Pope’s use of indulgences to raise money – an idea that went against Luther’s interpretation of scripture that said “salvation through faith alone.” Thanks to the new technology of the printing press, copies of Luther’s theses had spread across all of Europe within three months.[9] The Catholic Church obviously didn’t like Luther challenging their system of raising money, and Tetzel replied by posting his own set of thesis early the next year.

Luther continued to fight for his ideas and beliefs through many debates and in June of 1520 “[Pope] Leo X issued a bull, or papal order, criticizing Luther and excommunicating him from the church”[10] which Luther “publicly burned” to show that he would not be controlled or censored by the Church. Upon being summoned to court he was ordered by the Pope to recant 41 sentences from his works within 60 days, or he would risk being excommunicated.[11] The sentences included anything that suggested that the Church was not perfect or that people did not need to listen to the Church or Pope. Additionally, the Pope placed a ban on all of Luther’s works, ordering existing copies in print to be burned publicly. Despite this harsh ruling, the Pope did not actually excommunicate Luther himself because he had hoped that Luther would repent and recant his teachings, effectively destroying the threat to the Church posed by Luther’s ideas and followers. Luther never did recant these sentences and he endured a number of trials over many months.

In his final trial at Worms in January of 1521, Luther was asked if he admitted to publishing his books. He asked for a day to consider his reply and came back saying,

“Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason … I neither can nor will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor honorable to act against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me, Amen”[12]

Luther also spent some time at this trial giving a lengthy explanation of his position. He had thought out his ideas very carefully, choosing specific wording to be sure to avoid any confusion in meaning.

The entire debate between Luther and the Catholic Church is a perfect example of corrupt authority being confronted with the truth, only to fight back with power. Upon being attacked, the Church made every attempt to silence Luther because he was teaching something that would very negatively impact the Church and possibly jeopardize their very role in society. One historian, Mark Edwards, writes, “Luther was willing to enter debate on the basis of Scripture; his opponents refused… [and] resorted to force, condemning him with an unjust ban and burning his books.”[13] Luther, in preparation for his trials, said “I am not afraid, for God’s Will will (sic) be done, and I rejoice to suffer in so noble a cause”[14] which further supports the idea that Luther was open to discussing his ideas though the Church would not listen. Many people began to see how strongly Martin Luther felt about what he believed and his ideas started to catch on, creating a turning point in history all because one person had the courage to stand up against corrupt authority.

Upon returning home in March of 1522, nearly half of Germany was convinced that Luther’s ideas were correct. “Many called themselves ‘Lutherans’ (only later did the reformers come to be known as Protestants).”[15] Luther continued to hold true to his beliefs as he made efforts to calm down his “followers” through reason, encouraging people to read the bible for themselves. In 1530 one of Luther’s followers by the name of Philip Melanchthon, with help from Luther, tried to unify the Lutherans and the Catholic Church through a written “statement of faith” known as the Augsburg Confession which later “became the basis for the doctrine of Lutheran churches.”[16] These efforts were, unfortunately, rejected by the Catholic Church, keeping the two groups of believers divided. In modern Europe and even all over the world today there are still many denominations and divisions of Christianity as a result of this. Luther died on February 18, 1546. Less than an hour before his death two pastors had, in light of Luther’s state of health, asked him, “Reverend Father, do you die in the faith of your Lord Jesus Christ, and in the doctrine which you preached in His Name?” to which he replied very strongly with the word “Yes.”[17]

Luther, thinking outside of the box, came up with a revolutionary idea of salvation through faith and refused to step down from his beliefs under even the most threatening accusations. What had started as intellectual debate had transformed into an entire reformation which altered society and eventually led to the decline of the Roman Catholic Church. His works caused a major turning point in history and brought civilization away from tradition. Had Luther not put his beliefs into practice Europe could quite conceivably still be living under the rule of the Roman Catholic Church, purchasing indulgences on a daily basis to save our souls from purgatory.

[1] Jacobs, Henry Eyster. Martin Luther: The Hero of the Reformation. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1898. (20)

[2] Martin Luther: Hero of the Reformation (21)

[3] Martin Luther: Hero of the Reformation (28)

[4] Saari, Peggy. Renaissance & Reformation Primary Sources. Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, 2002. (120)

[5] Renaissance & Reformation Primary Sources (120)

[6] Indulgences were advertised using the slogan, “As soon as the gold in the casket rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs!”

[7] www.nndb.com & www.britannica.com

[8] Martin Luther: Hero of the Reformation (59)

[9] www.pbs.org

[10] Renaissance & Reformation Primary Sources (126)

[11] Atkinson, James. The Trail of Luther. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1971. (89)

[12] www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc07/Page_72.html

[13] Edwards, Mark U. Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. (97)

[14] www.pbs.org/empires/martinluther/

[15] Renaissance & Reformation Primary Sources (128)

[16] Renaissance & Reformation Primary Sources (128)

[17] Martin Luther: Hero of the Reformation (406)

References

Jacobs, Henry Eyster. Martin Luther: The Hero of the Reformation. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1898.

Atkinson, James. The Trail of Luther. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1971.

Edwards, Mark U. Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.

Perry, Marvin. Western Civilization, A Brief History. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.

Saari, Peggy. Renaissance & Reformation Primary Sources. Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, 2002.

About Martin Luther. Published by PBS. 17 September 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/empires/martinluther>

Johann Tetzel. Published by the NNDB. 3 October 2007. <http://www.nndb.com/people/102/000098805>

Johann Tetzel. Published by Encyclopedia Britannica. 3 October 2007. <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9071865/Johann-Tetzel>

Luther, The Reformer. 3 October 2007. <http://www.susanlynnpeterson.com/luther/reform.html>

New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Published by Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 22 October 2007. < http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc07/Page_72.html>

95 Thesis. Webpage cites: Works of Martin Luther:

Adolph Spaeth, L.D. Reed, Henry Eyster Jacobs, et Al., Trans. & Eds.

(Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915), Vol.1, pp. 29-38. 17 September 2007. <http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/ninetyfive.html>

So you’re typing in a word document and everything you type seems to run right over the text in front of it — that is, instead of inserting more letters like you’re used to the computer erases an existing letter for every new letter you type. This is called “Overtype” and it’s an evil, evil feature that plagues windows computers. To disable the overtype mode, simply press the “Insert” button on your keyboard. To enable it, just press it again.

Note: Unlike the Caps Lock key, there is no light on your keyboard that will tell you if overtype is enabled or not. There is usually an indicator in your word document on the status bar that will say “OVR” if it is enabled.

More on overtype mode and the insert key can be found on Wikipedia here.