October 2006 Archives

I'm currently reading a book by Kevin J. Anderson called Hidden Empire. It is science fiction and I have a great deal of interest in science fiction because it reveals much about the mindset of what various authors hope for or dread in the future. Of course, one can't put too much stock in what's said and I do read it as much for leisure. A theme I often notice is how authors treat religion. In this specific case, there is a religious body for the humans called the "Church of Unison". This "religion" is described as the "United Nations of religion." This comment led me to some interesting thoughts about both how SciFi authors use/abuse religion and about the United Nations.

I don't think Anderson is a religious person of any deep conviction based upon the existence of this Church of Unison in his book (or wasn't at the time of this writing). I could be wrong, but the idea that the great religions of the world would some how come together and promote a universal one religion leader is preposterous. I find the idea offensive in the extreme as should any person who refers to them self as "Christian," "Jew," or "Muslim." Hinduism and Buddhism and many other religions may allow for a variety of paths to divinity, but Christianity, Judaism, and Islam specifically denounce any other path to God (though, some sects naming themselves under one of these might disagree with that statement).

In the book, the goal of this one world religion is to strongly discourage religious fervor. I again find this pretty unbelievable. I religions have their fanatics. Even a one world religion will gain a priesthood of dedicated individuals that would trade their life for their belief, even if such were officially discouraged. One need only look throughout history and note how every religion has had its strong fanatics, often by sub-sects that fail to follow orthodox doctrine, but also frequently with officially condoned fanaticism.

On the other hand, there is nothing to say that various religions can't build a council to help encourage understanding and cooperation despite official doctrinal differences. That is, I can see such an organization as working to provide a context for arbitrating disputes and promoting a few common themes, but not to provide any kind of doctrinal agreement. Only when a religion is so liberal as to be able to have little doctrine or where the followers are willing to ignore its doctrine would anything more be possible. However, such wouldn't satisfy a large percentage of strongly convicted believes who insist that there is Truth and refuse to allow it to be diluted.

I then turned the analogy on its head and realized that this also helps to explain why I consider the United Nations to be a fairly worthless organization. The title itself, "United Nations," is completely false. There is nothing united about these nations. In fact, most of the representatives don't even represent nations. The U.N. consists of democratic republics, socialist democracies, communists, autocracies, oligarchies, monarchies, fascists, theocracies, and all the shades in between. The vast majority of these are some form of autocracy, whether that be communist, fascist, or the plain, bald-faced dictatorships. Therefore, most of the members don't even represent the people of the country sending an ambassador. They represent the government or even just a small segment of the bureaucracy that makes all the decisions by force. Admittedly, it is possible for an autocrat to represent his people, but that's not the norm. In general, autocrats only represent their people just enough to keep them from thinking hard enough about revolution.

One can argue the same of the elected representatives of our government. However, it's much easier for us to have a "revolution" ousting a representative from office via the ballot box making them pay much closer attention.

The idea that the U.N. can somehow build consensus among so many different interests is completely absurd. Giving the U.N. power is like trying to put a lion, an elephant, a monkey, and an ant-eater in a cage and asking them to come to a consensus on what to eat. The lion will want to eat whichever of the others is closest, the ant-eater could care less what the others eat as long as there's an anthill near the cage, and the elephant and monkey will argue over what kind of vegetables or fruits taste best. You won't get anywhere. If you watch the U.N., they don't get anywhere. To expect grand solutions from this body is a good laugh at best and just plain pathetic at worst.

I blog on a wide range of topics. Because of this, my blog one day might focus on Bible study and the next on a trip I took and the next on some site improvement I'm making on one of the web sites I maintain or help maintain. I'm guessing that some visiting my site probably get whiplash and probably have a hard time knowing what to pay attention to.

Solution: Crossite module. I've written a module I've dubbed "Crossite" which uses the multi-site features of Drupal to share nodes between them.

This solution provides a kind of ultra-cheap aggregation of information on the various sub-sites. All the sites share the users, nodes, taxonomy information, but have their own themes, settings, and cache. The main feature provided by this plugin does two things. First, a node is categorized as "belonging" to a given site based upon the taxonomy terms it has been filed under. If a node has no matching taxonomy terms, it is treated as if it belongs to the default site.

The second half of this functionality is a redirect that is performed when viewing nodes that belong to a different site. If you click on a link that leads to a node page for a site that belongs to another and does not belong to this site, you will be redirect to the node's page on that other site. A node might belong to multiple sites or all sites simultaneously if it has the correct terms attached to it. In fact, one term might even link a node to multiple sites.

A secondary feature is that it adds a new property to node objects, named "sites". This returns an array of sites to which the node belongs. This can then be used to determine how to theme pages or do other custom tid-bits.

I'd like to make a "Crossite_view" module to distribute with the parent module to further facilitate this by allowing sites to have specialized list views. The configuration of the system is a kludge and needs to be incorporated into the UI to make installation easier/possible. Right now, you have to modify the "settings.php" file for all the sites. Anyway, I'm waiting for my CVS account on Drupal.org before publishing the module.

In application, I've expanded my web site now to include two domains I've owned for awhile but had been hoping to use for other purposes. I don't think those other things are going to happen just now, but I wanted to use them in the meantime.

This site, Andrew.Sterling.Hanenkamp.com will focus on the "life" stories about things happening with me and my family, my general opinions, etc. I will also use this site as the primary aggregation site for all the other articles. The main list will feature those articles as other headlines between the "Life" articles. I will probably provide a master feed of all my web contributions as well. I'd like to have something like the Newsvine seed where I can pull in articles, comments, and other bits I post on other sites as well---such as links to my Boomer Bulletin articles.

I will feature technical stories about computing, Perl, Java, programming, web, software, Apple, Linux, etc. on Contentment. That site formerly hosted my CMS efforts, which are now defunct. I had, briefly, also planned on using it as a place to discuss church site development or provide project management tools to teams building church web sites. However, one is already being handled by the Churches group on Drupal Groups. The other proved to be too ambitious for me to do in the time I could spare between everything else I do when not at work.

My Bible studies will be featured on Open Scripture. This site reflects my desire to know my Bible and "Open Scripture" describes a kind of mini-motto that describes my take on the Christian life. I purchased this domain in the hopes of helping create some kind of Bible study/collaboration tools. Again this has proven to be too ambitious and probably premature. In the meantime, I will use it to share my personal Bible study.

My web site continues to evolve, bit by bit. It's kind of a fun little project to dink with every few weeks and is enough to keep me entertained at home.

Cheers.

This weekend I was honored with the opportunity to accompany four representatives of Ogden Elementary School to go to the Intel
and Scholastic
Schools of Distinction
Gala in Washington D.C.
I've previously
discussed the fact that Ogden was granted this award. I'm posting this blog to record the events, show some photos, talk about the awards, and the folks we met.

Everything started when we met at our house around 4:30 on Wednesday evening. We, Jim, Dave, Mike, Terri, and I, piled into the "Blue Flame" or the "Blue Beast" as the van came to be known during the trip. We then headed off toward Kansas City where we had a reservation at the Econo Lodge
. Since everyone just got off from work, the trip was mostly occupied unwinding from the day and talking about hopes for winning the Best of the Best prize.

When we reached Bonner Springs, we stopped off at Granite City Food and Brewery
on the way to the hotel. Terri's brother Jeremy works there and we had some excellent food. The food was all the better since Jeremy put it on the house.

After we finished out food, we finished the trip to Econo Lodge and started the arduous process of checking in. I'm pretty sure I cannot make any recommendation of this establishment. The service was curt, slow, and inefficient. It was cheap, but I've had better experience at that price before. After we finally got settled in, we all made our best attempt to sleep. In the case of Terri and I, that didn't really work, but it wasn't too bad.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to catch the shuttle to airport for a 7:40 flight. One of the greatest things about the Kansas City International Airport (MCI)
is that the security lines are always very short. We got there early anyway as a precaution, but I was, at least, able to enjoy a cup of coffee before the flight. Unfortunately, our gate didn't have any drink service inside security, so we weren't able to take anything to drink on the plane. However, our flight was nearly perfectly on time and we flew on Midwest Airlines
, which provided excellent service on the trip. (I'm mostly concerned with making sure my pregnant wife had all the water she needed.)

After we landed at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
, we were given a ride by a very nice shuttle service. We were greeted by a man carrying a sign labeled "Students of Distinction," (rather than "School of Distinction") which began the jokes "of Distinction" which became this trip's pun of choice. We rode the shuttle from the airport to our hotel in great comfort. That was certainly the nicest shuttle I've ever seen with cushy leather seats and a wet bar—though, the only drinks present were water.

We then made our first attempt to check into our hotel in Washington D.C., the historic Mayflower Renaissance Hotel
, which is, as I learned later, one of three five-star hotels
in Washington D.C. It is also famous as it was designed by the same architect that designed Grand Central Station in New York and was J. Edgar Hoover
's ("the fascist" in Dave's words) preferred office for several years. They didn't have our rooms available when we first arrived at noon (which isn't surprising since checkout is at noon and we arrived at 11:00am EDT).

We checked our bags with the bell captain and then caught a couple cabs to get to the Hart Building
to meet with one of Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS)
aides. We then caught a couple more cabs to get to the Longworth Building
to meet with an aide with Representative Jim Ryun (R-KS)
. And then it was back to the Hart Building again to meet with an aide in the office of senior Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS)
. In addition, we met with Lin from the Scholastic government affairs office, whom Terri had been working with to arrange several of the specifics of the trip. For the meeting with Ryun and Roberts we were accompanied by Jenny, who was a lobbyist with Intel.

While we were traversing between the buildings, Mike misplaced his camera in one of the cabs, which he realized as we reached Roberts office. This is the sort of thing that can really ruin your day, especially since he already had to replace his cell phone recently due to a rather spectacular meeting between his phone and the ground (after surviving being run over by a car moments before). Jim, with his magic memory, remembered the cab number and we figured out the company when we got back outside. Jenny said she'd take care of it for Mike. About three blocks down, we saw Jenny on the side of the road flagging Mike's cab down as she'd already located the cab, flagged it down, and gotten the camera from the drive. This was a camera recovery of distinction.

After this adventure, we returned to the hotel, checked in, and rested for a bit before the Gala. I had some brief difficulty in finding my tux, but Candace down at the desk took care of it for me. Terri and I dressed up in our fancy-shmancy clothes and then headed down with the others to the gala. The Schools of Distinction Gala worked in three phases: cocktails, dinner and awards, and finished with a dessert bar. The hor d'eurves were quite good and we met various other winners, vendors, and others.

It was during this time that a man came up to Terri and I and asked where we were from and why we were there. He stated surprise that there was a "Manhattan, Kansas" and managed to get Terri to tell him some of what they did to earn the Mathematics award. She explained that they tried to help students discover math by constructing their own solutions to the problems. They often do this using manipulatives, like snap cubes to help with concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, etc. Then, he asked what "snap cubes" were. Terri explained they they were "like Legos." He then asked if they were as good as "Legos." Terri said, "No." He then handed us his card and introducted himself as Harvey Dean
, CEO and President of Pitsco
and the President of Lego Education
. Pitsco is based out of Pittsburg, Kansas
, so he was being entirely facetious about not knowing about Manhattan, Kansas
. We even talked football a bit. This was an introduction of distinction.

The cocktails ended and we headed into dinner and the awards ceremony. We sat at Table #1, which was the best seat in the house. We were pretty excited to learn this and wondered if it was a good omen for the prospect of the Best of the Best award. At the table I met one of the top guys at the National Science Foundation
, the Don Knezek
, CEO of ISTE
, which helps establish technology teaching standards, Ernie Fleischman, Senior Vice President of Scholastic
, and Craig Barrett
, CEO of Intel
. Ernie was probably our favorite new acquaintance. He was very funny, had interesting stories to tell, was very intelligent, and asked very pointed questions, and provided very interesting commentary on the topics discussed.

The food was served and was excellent. The meal was filet of steak and seabass served with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. That was very easily the best steak I've ever had. The seabass was also superb. The wine seemed to be popular too, but I don't much care for wine, so the goodness of the wine was lost on me. Following the dinner came coffee and sorbet, both were also extremely good. It would have been a good evening, if only for the food.

As we worked our way through the coffee and sorbet, the awards presentation began. Each of the major sponsors and a general overview of the products being donated was announced. Adobe
gave some licenses to each of their software suites to each school. Dell
gave laptops and color laser printers. Intel gave $10,000 to each school. Scholastic awarded accesses to their online Grolier
service. Smart Technologies
gave each school a few Smart Boards
. Pitsco gave each school $2,500 worth of their products, which includes LEGOs and LEGO Mindstorm robots. There were so many prizes that I don't remember any of the others off hand.

Following this, a representative from each of the vendors then introduced and handed over the to the winning schools
. I believe it was the representative from Lenovo
, the company spun off from the former laptop division of IBM, that introducted Ogden Elementary
and announced their award for Mathematics Achievement as an Elementary School of Distinction. Then, Ernie Fleishman and Craig Barrett gave their speeches and introduced the Best of the Best winners. These had not been announced so their was quite a bit of anticipation leading up to this point. Unfortunately, Ogden did not win the Best of the Best Award, which is given to the school that the judges felt had performed the best overall achievement at their level. However, the other Kansas school present, Chisholm Middle School
of Newton, Kansas
did win the best of the best in the secondary division. We can be proud to know that one of the schools that one was from Kansas.

Following the awards ceremony, we mingled more, got a few more pictures, and ate some fantastic desserts from the dessert bar. I met a few more executives from Pitsco and Intel, but then Terri and I packed it in for the evening. We then got to experience in full measure the glory that is the softest mattress I've ever experienced in a hotel. They place seven pillows on the bed (with extras in the closet) and have a down filled comforter and an extra-soft pillow-top mattress. It was nearly as soft as our waterbed at home. Other than having to wake up once in the middle of the night to turn down the A/C (down comforters are warm), we both slept very well, which is unusual for me in a strange bed, especially a hotel bed.

The next morning, Terri, Mike, and Jim had meetings with the vendors to attend. They were to hear of all the awards that were included, which added up to more than $150,000 worth, all told ($2.5 million split between 16 schools). Since only three representatives were supposed to attend these meetings, Dave and I were free to tour the nation's capital. We planned (though not very well) to take the trolley around town to see the sites, which came highly recommended by Ernie from Scholastic. I say not very well because neither of us thought to make arrangements on how to actually meet, neither of us are organizer/planner types. As such, we missed each other completely the next morning. It turns out, I think, to have worked well anyway. Dave had the opportunity to tour the national headquarters of the National Education Association
(NEA) (for which he is one of the major representatives in the school district), which I would not have enjoyed, being, in general, a political adversary of the NEA. I took a very wet and cold walking tour of uptown, the National Mall
, and had lunch in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

The next morning, I purchased my trolley ticket and headed out to the east entrance of the hotel to wait. While waiting I met a retired couple from Texas, Jim and Mary. They had just finished a tour of the White House
the previous day, which I learned was only possible if you got an endorsement from your local congressional representative at least three months in advance. I took the tour trolley around one full circuit with Jim and Mary before getting off north of the White House to start my walking tour. I got to share with the two of them that I was surprised to find that nearly all the aides working for our congressmen were from the northeast and had no real ties to our district. The exception was Senator Roberts, who required the majority of his staff be from Kansas and that at least one person from Kansas man the reception desk at all times. (This raised my estimation of Roberts even higher than before. His office also looked like he worked there rather than being a show piece.)

Getting out north of the White House, I snapped a few pictures and then walked around. It was raining and pretty chilly. Despite the cold, there were still a few ubiquitous protestors out front of the White House protesting the Iraq War
, the militarization of space
, and the possession of nuclear arms
. There were also a couple tourist groups trying to get their picture taken out front. I then walked east past the Treasury Department and then south past the William Tecumseh Sherman
memorial and got some photos of the South Lawn of the White House. The George Washington Monument
is visible for a pretty wide area so I could usually judge where I was by my relationship to the Monument at any given time. I then walked west and walked by the Red Cross building, the Constitution Hall
building, the States of America building, and then walked to the George Washington Monument.

The Washington Monument is surrounded by a large lawn and sits atop a low hill. The lawn was covered with ducks and geese. By the time I reached the base of the Monument, the wind was really blowing and the rain had started coming down at a pretty decent rate. I took a couple snapshots from there and decided to walk away. I might have gone for a ride up the Monument, but I wasn't sure I wanted to wait for a time slot to do so. If/when Terri and I make it back to Washington D.C., perhaps we can go up together. I did, on the tour, learn an interesting fact about the original elevator in the Washington Monument. Women and children were allowed to take the hundreds of stairs to the top of the monument, but the elevator was for men only. This was because the elevator was steam powered and for every couple feet up, it dropped a foot. This was considered too hazardous for women and children. Somehow, I think it would be considered too hazardous for anyone today.

From the Washington Monument, I walked towards the Lincoln Memorial
and stopped at the World War II Memorial
. The World War II Memorial sits at the east end of the Reflection Pool. It's a central pool and fountain with two domes at either end representing each of the Atlantic and Pacific theatres. I didn't learn much more about the Memorial than what I observed. The various states that offered up young men and women who sacrificed their lives were each represented by a stone placard and a copper wreath. Other districts were represented with placards. Along the ramp leading down to the central fountain were a number of vignettes depicting the different modes of fighting by land, by sea, and by air. The back of the memorial, closest to the Reflecting Pool featured thousands of gold stars above a pool.

I continued toward the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool and then walked up the steps into the Memorial itself. Lincoln sat there as large as I expected, but the greatness of the image can't really be translated into film. One the north wall of the memorial is inscribed the Gettysburg Address
, which was poorly received by the audience present, but was powerfully received by the rest of the nation when printed in the newspapers. The south wall gives his second inaugural address. While there, I learned that Lincoln's image was sculpted such that one of his hands formed the sign language sign for "A" and the other for "L" giving his initials A.L. As I left the Lincoln Memorial, I noticed the inscripture at the top of the steps where Martin Luther King, Jr.
stood when he gave his "I Have a Dream
" speech.

I then visited the Vietnam War Memorial
. The low black wall is considerably longer and sits in a different setting than I expected. I learned from Terri that the names themselves are meant to be difficult to read in the rain, and they definitely were. Not knowing any name to look up, I simply looked over a few of them and took some pictures. Mike, Jim, and Dave went back for a midnight tour later that evening and Mike recalled the first and last names on the wall. I also visited the Vietnam Women's Memorial
in honor of the women that died in the Vietnam War.

After that, I decided I was really hungry and decided to take the bus to Georgetown. I walked back over to the bus stop and waited for the next uptown trolley. When I got off at Georgetown, I really wanted to get something warm to drink, so I went down into Georgetown Park, which is a mall below Wisconsin Avenue and got some coffee. I then walked up Wisconsin Avenue to see if I could find anything to eat that piqued my interest. I can't say that anything was a stand-out, but I ended up in The Bean Counter
, which was a little sandwich/coffee shop, which advertised their Cuban Sandwich in the window. I gave it try and it was pretty good. I ate that with a Latté in the upstairs dining area, which appeared to be an extra dining area by day and the couple's living room by night. It was very strange to this Kansan, but it was warm, which was the most important factor for me. Then, I walked back to the trolley and headed back to the Mayflower so I could make the 6:00 dinner appointment. I finished with a second tour of Embassy Row
, where many of the embassies
(Ambassadors' living quarters) and chancelleries
(Ambassadors' offices) are located in D.C. This leg also includes the Islamic Center of Washington
, the National Cathedral
, the Taft Bridge
, and other buildings near the Mayflower Hotel
.

After getting a some respite from the cold and wet and working to at least superficially dry out my shoes, Terri and I got dressed up again to go out to Sam and Harry's
for our last dinner in Washington D.C. There I had the crab cakes, swordfish, and cheesecake. It was excellent. I even enjoyed the wine as much as I ever have enjoyed wine. Terri reports that her stake wasn't quite as good as at the Mayflower, but it was still excellent. During dinner we were introduced to the crumber
or "crumb squeegee" as I dubbed it. The wait staff had these little devices that they used to inconspicuously wipe crumbs onto the floor. Jim thought they were so cool and made such a big deal out of them that the headwaiter gave him one to keep.

With the dinner over, Terri and I headed back to the hotel, packed up, and collapsed. As I mentioned, Jim, Mike, and Dave went out for a late tour of the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Memorial
, and the Vietnam War Memorial. I would liked to have taken a night tour as well, but to take the midnight tour probably wouldn't have worked for us as both Terri and I were dead on our feet. Perhaps next time.

The next morning we checked out, grabbed some coffee from the hotel, hopped into our shuttle and headed back to Washington National. The only memorable story left was that the flight attendants on our Midwest Airlines flight gave Terri, Mike, Jim, and Dave whole bags of the cookies they serve on the flight in recognition of their award. They fresh baked during the flight and are very good. We got a ride back to Econo Lodge and we drove back to Manhattan with very little fanfare.

That's how I ended my week. Congratulations to Ogden Elementary. The leadership and staff there have worked really hard to really serve their students in an extraordinary way. The resources and recognition that are part of this award will continue to help them serve their students and I hope they can use these resources as a launch pad to do good and great things for their students and help inspire other schools in the district and in the state to work to achieve great things as well.

Cheers.

It's been a few weeks since my last study
of Daniel
. I've been spending my quiet time either napping or studying something else offline because I hadn't yet unraveled the mystery of Nebuchadnezzar's dream to my satisfaction. I've read several interpretations of the dream and reached a conclusion I'm comfortable with.

First, the introduction for Daniel is given in Daniel 2:25-30
:

25Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him: ¿I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king the interpretation.¿ 26The king said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, ¿Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?¿ 27Daniel answered the king and said, ¿No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, 28but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these: 29To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. 30But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.

Daniel is brought in and announced and immediately the King wants to know if Daniel can give both the dream and the interpretation. Daniel responds first by telling the King that he has asked for the impossible and that no man can do what he's asked. However, God "reveals mysteries" and has allowed Daniel to know the contents of the King's dream. Daniel explains that this dream is special in that it comes directly from God and that it reveals what will happen in "latter days," the future. Daniel finally makes it clear that he is not in himself special. God chose to reveal the meaning through him, but not because of any particular virtue he held within himself.

Daniel is amazingly humble in all this. He's not willing to take any glory and seems almost reluctant to reveal the meaning of the dream on the risk that the King will see the interpretation as coming from Daniel rather than from God Himself. As far as Nebuchadnezzar himself would have been concerned, the God of Israel was just one of many gods. Daniel would appear to him to be a messenger sent by this God to him. For Daniel, there is only one God and all other gods are merely the idols made by human hands with no more power than the metal or wood they were formed from.

Now the dream, I'm going to give the full scripture of Daniel 2:31-45
and then explain the passage:

31¿You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. 32The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, 33its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

36¿This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. 37You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, 38and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all¿you are the head of gold. 39Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. 41And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter¿s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. 42And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. 43As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, 45just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.¿

First, Daniel just explains the dream. He follows this with the interpretation. I've found the dream to be very easy to understand at first, but it becomes less and less easy to follow as it goes on.

Nebuchadnezzar saw, in his dream, a huge and shining statue in his dream. The size of it is frightening. It's construction is made of costlier materials at the top and as we move down the worth of those materials decreases. At the same time, the strength of those materials also increases, until the feet. As the dream progressed a massive stone was "cut out by no human hands," which indicates that God cuts this stone. The stone is cast at the statue and utterly destroys it. The remains are blown away in the wind and the mountain then filled the whole earth.

I'm a bit reminded of the images of the Twin Towers falling on September 11, 2001. As the buildings fell, the steel, concrete, and glass that made up the structure was pulverized to dust and the cloud hung over Manhattan for days. When this great stone strikes this statue, it grinds the statue to dust and nothing is left that may be salvaged. It blows a way like "chaff," or the dead grass left after the kernels of grain have been removed. Of course, the great difference between these two events is the one is a stone cut and cast by God while the towers were struck down by terrorists.

Daniel then explains that the head of gold is Nebuchadnezzar himself. As noted by Dr. Renald Showers in his book, The Most High God, A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (© 1982 Friends of Israel Ministries, Inc.), a King was considered as synonymous with his kingdom during this time and in this region. Therefore, the gold head also represents the kingdom of Babylon. Showers also comments that the chief god of Bablon was Marduk, the god of gold. Gold was also used extensively in Babylonian architecture and was overlaid on buildings, walls, and idols.

Daniel explains that the silver, the bronze, and the iron are later kingdoms that shall rise up after Babylon. These later kingdoms are almost universally understood to be, respectively, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Medo-Persia is represented by silver because silver was a synonym for money in ancient times and Medo-Persia established an extensive tax system. Greece is represented by bronze because the Greeks used bronze as the primary metal in their weapons, which allowed them to conquer all of the Middle East. Rome is represented by iron because Rome used weapons of iron just as Greece used bronze. This final kingdom is pictured as crushing everything that came before it, which aptly describes how the Romans conquered and ruled.

However, the final kingdom of Rome becomes weak and divided over time. This is symbolized by the mixture of iron and soft clay, which will not mix properly. The toes at the bottom of the image also seem to take on significance. The kingdom of Rome splits into multiple kingdoms at the toes. Then, the end for them all comes with the arrival of the great stone. This great stone is Christ Himself. God sent Him to earth to prepare his earthly Kingdom. Christ will then return and utterly destroy the remnant of these earthly kingdoms and setup a new Kingdom that will take up the whole earth and will last forever.

The difficult part of the interpretation for me comes at the very end. It comes particularly with the fact that the final part of the dream appears to involve ten kings who rule ten kingdoms, represented by the ten toes of the statue. This is further reinforced by a parallel dream that Daniel has some years later, which is revealed in Daniel 7
. In that dream, Daniel dreams of four beasts, which represent the same four empires. The final beast has ten horns and then an eleventh, which displaces three of the first ten horns. This places great significance upon the number ten and these ten kings/kingdoms.

My difficulty arises from the fact that Rome is no longer an empire, but at no point in the history of that nation, did it have ten kings or ten kingdoms. One interpretation is that the Roman empire will be revived in the future and the world will be ruled as ten kingdoms. I find this interpretation unsatisfying because the statue is one continuous structure. It seems to me that the toes would be cut off or something if the kingdom was not a continuation.

An interpretation that I find more satisfying is that the way the Roman empire ends with the mixing of iron and clay suggests a sort of gradual failing of the empire. Therefore, the Roman empire, in a way, never ended. Rather, the Romans "will mix with one another in marriage." By my interpretation, the Romans intermarried with the marauding germanic clans that came out of the far east across Russia and eventually settled in Europe. There is no clear date for the end of the Roman Empire. In fact, the empire split into two and then continued to fracture and other kings began to claim the title of Caesar for themselves. The Kaisers ruled from Germany and the Czars ruled from Russia.

Therefore, you could interpret the ten toes as not a literal ten toes, but as all the fractured nations that arose out of the Roman Empire following it's slow decay. On the other hand, these might represent ten literal kingdoms as well, which will gain ascendency out of the long dead ruin of the Romans, but represented by the same peoples. Even now, the blood of Rome is becoming further diluted as it mingles with other nations, such as are arriving in the massive influx of immigrants in Europe and America today. I am not confident enough to declare either as the true interpretation, particularly because the full prophecy of the coming kingdom has not occurred. Who can know such things for certain? However, I can say that the literal ten kingdoms seems more likely to me because numbers in scripture have an uncanny habit of being literally fulfilled, even when they are symbolic in the text.

Lastly, let's finish with Nebuchadnezzar's reaction to this interpretation, as given in Daniel 2:46-49
:

46Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel, and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him. 47The king answered and said to Daniel, ¿Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.¿ 48Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. 49Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king¿s court.

Nebuchadnezzar finds this interpretation so satisfying, that he falls down and worships Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar was using Daniel as the idol representing God in the same way that a golden image is worshipped in place of the god it represents. In a sense, Daniel's reluctance to share the interpretation was well-founded because Nebuchadnezzar immediately performs an inappropriate worship practice in response to the revelation given by Daniel. It should be specifically noted that Nebuchadnezzar doesn't truly acknowledge God as the one and only God, but just as the highest of all gods. This will become important later.

Nebuchadnezzar ends by making Daniel the ruler of the most important province of Babylon. Daniel passes the actual responsibility of this rule on to his friends so he can remain in the King's court, which is where he felt he could best serve God.

The application I would give is that God has a plan for the future. Parts of that plan have been revealed in a vague way. We know that God will establish a future kingdom that will completely obliterate any kingdom established by man. Given the nature of this dream, I would say, be prepared for this to come to pass soon. The end is nearer today than it was yesterday and by this sign of the times, the time is very near, indeed. We've entered the time of the feet and perhaps even the time of the toes. Our time for turning to God and obeying him grows shorter all the time, which should motivate us to seek to obey him ever more fervently.

Next time, we'll see how Nebuchadnezzar responds to this dream. He builds a monument that attempts to represent his disagreement and, in the process, the three new presidents of the province, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, are tested in the fiery furnace.

Cheers.