I mean, really. Joe does sort of make one feel that the world is upside down. Was it only less than a decade ago that we welcomed him as the Democratic candidate for VP? How can this be?

Either this man has turned as about faced as any one could, or we were duped badly. And that may well be the case, since one must allow that a few folks were duped into actually thinking Dubya had a brain, and we know he was the tin man. Or was that a heart? I can’t remember which.

Joe, clearly a person who thinks of himself as the patriarchal leader of his Connecticut flock rather than the spokesman for said flock, has claimed he will “not allow a public option health care reform bill on the floor of the Senate.” Goodness and mercy me, when did Joe become so powerful? He and he alone controls this power?

Doubly hard since Jon Stewart parodies him so well in that stuffed nose doggy style, making Joey sound like a pathetic minion more akin to the bumbling sidekick to any comedy team you can think of. Who the freakin’ f**k does this buffoon think he is after all? Hate monger and war touter who seems unconcerned with killing folks (long as he is safely at home), has the unmitigated gall to act in direct opposition to the majority of his constituency in making this claim that he will deride any health care bill that doesn’t pass Lieberman cheese muster. A pox on his house!

Okay, that seems to lead inexorably to this next story. Namely that there is a new movie out called as you may have guessed, “The Men who Stare at Goats. ” Note first that it says MEN who stare at goats. Women are just way smarter than men it seems.

Okay, so I figured, George Clooney, sexy George, oh yeah, I can watch this. Somehow it will be good. He’s a fine comedic type after all beyond his allure. Yeah, I can do this. Although how they can make anything rational out of such a concept would be hard. Hard. Right.

IT’S BASED ON A FREAKIN TRUE STORY! I know, I know, but now you see why it said “men” and not women. Some freakin’ brain dead military types actually smelled a bit too much of the gun powder and came up with this idea that you can and should try to think a goat to death. I have no idea why they picked goats. I have no idea why anyone with what appeared to be a loaded brain case would ever in their wildest imaginations consider this possible.

I live in a crazy country, and perhaps in a crazy world. That is my only explanation. This means that it really is true, that with God all things are indeed possible. Man has concluded that everything under the sun, moon, stars, nebula, black holes, quasars, pulsars, dark matter, can and might be true or can happen. End of story.

Come here. Just a little closer. . . . Can we talk? Me and you, Mr. TV producer type? We need to get something straight here.

I’m all aware of how you guys like to be lazy. I mean genre, genre right? A few ago it was reality shows, and now we are all pitching our sorta abnormal, sciencey fiction type stuff? Right? I get that.

But, it is unfair, not copacetic, not within the rules to start ‘em and then leave us hangin’, twisting in the wind as it were. Ya just can’t cancel shows without resolving them!

You create these mysteries and then, slam bam, you’re onto something new, and all the while I’m still left in the Everglades with some kinda pods that are erupting there. And there was another thing about some kinda monster along the west coast, swimming around. Never resolved that one either. You claim you will with LOST. Not sure what your intentions are regarding HEROES, but it’s seeming rather disjointed these days. You just kinda slobbered all over GALACTICA didn’t ya?

Time to shape up. And hey, while you are at it, lets put just a tad more thought into all this. You resurrected “V“. Now I understand that that was an old series (my point actually is that you’re being rather lazy doncha think?), and so it’s been clearly established that the Visitors are bad guys. So this just becomes another Law and Order in the old west, individual style? Not exactly inventive would you say?

Why are all aliens out and about to do us in? I mean isn’t this a rather old and pedantic and WORN OUT mantra? How’s about a thoughtful drama about what it means to really try to work with another civilization which is vastly superior? The frustrations and amusements of trying to have meaningful exchanges between what must be akin to chimps and humans? I mean that could cause some real interest couldn’t it? Rather than the old cowboys and Indians type sludge?

Inquiring minds want to know. I’m not holding out a lot of hope for “V” frankly. I mean they wasted zero time in making them enemies. So now its just a lot of spy infiltration, shooting, and killing, and the ending each week is 7 down, and 3,423,756 to go. Not very appealing.

Just sayin’.

I share with most people, the sadness of what transpired at Fort Hood in Texas. Sadness that so many were harmed and killed, grief that war continues to take its toll even off the battlefield.

What I most fervently prayed for, in those initial moments, is that no Muslim or Latino would be involved. Of course, that turned out not to be the case, as a Muslim army psychiatrist seems to be the person who wreaked such horror on the base.

I fear for the expected backlash, which always seems inevitable in this country. We are a country that proclaims it’s melting pot status on the one hand, and then goes out of its way to scapegoat most of its ills on “immigrants” and other “others.”

I cannot imagine the pain that ensued in Muslim quarters as the news came forth. I cannot imagine what plans and practices normal everyday Muslims must take to protect themselves against the slurs and actions of rabid “patriotic” nut cases. I almost desire to run up to every Muslim I can identify as such as offer my apologies.

I have already heard talk that “some” suggest that Muslims shouldn’t be serving in the armed forces, simply because our identifiable enemy is “Islam.” Of course it is not, for the vast vast majority of Muslims are law abiding, pious, quiet people, much like their Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters. It is only some demented fundamentalist types who pose a danger to all of us, Muslim, Jew,  and Christian alike.

Such an idea is absurd and unconscionable of course. It is akin to the racist nonsense we endured during WWII when we “interred” Japanese Americans, lest they secretly offer help to the Empire of Japan. We still are shamed by the film of those days as perfectly ordinary citizens are rounded up and incarcerated for no other reason that their heritage.

Such hatred and vitriol is not news these days. The right wing continues to ratchet up the rhetoric. Go to any of the tea bagger events and see the signs. President Obama is vilified as a “sambo” and referenced to Hitler. One knows that this powder keg will someday explode in some sort of ugly display. And of course the right wing pundits will all look left and right, and deny any complicity in the tragedy that has come upon us.

This is the quiet cloud of desperation that Muslims live under today. Never knowing. Keeping their eyes averted, and their mouths closed, they move among us. Knowing that anyone may be a potential nut case, ready to wreak patriotic retribution on supposed enemies of the state.

Latinos are not far behind in this. Regularly, otherwise innocuous “crimes” and unsavory activities are tied to “immigrants” and their “living off America” lives. We forget that they work harder and longer for less than most of us, and send a good portion to family members still trapped in even deeper poverty than here experienced.

Fostered no doubt by high schools that still teach that American is somehow the best and never much to blame for anything, we now live in a nation which always looks to some one else to be the cause of our unhappiness. It is always the fault of the socialist, the communist, the anarchist, the fundamentalist, the Asian, the Latino, the Muslim, the Jew, the Buddhist. As long as it is not “us,” that illusive and ever shrinking whitey. We are the somehow never to blame, perfect being.

I offer my meager support to Muslim brothers and sisters and those of all other minorities who seek the American dream in this morass of fickle humanity. We can slap them on the back and tell them, that, “hey, this was done to the Irish and the Italians as well. They made it. You will too. Just keep you head down and your nose clean. In a few decades, we will have found someone else.” It is hollow and trite and is inexcusable.

I am saddened that we as a nation cannot seem to learn any better. I am sorry that we don’t see this tragedy for what it is. A man, ill suited to the job he was in, increasingly makes it clear that he doesn’t belong in war. We ignore him, as we do all such men and women for the most part. Buck up there soldier! we say. You’ll survive, just as we did. It used to be okay to say, “it will make a man of you,” but it doesn’t sound as good saying it will make a woman of you.

War has many victims. More than we know. It has all of us as its victim if we would but see that. We all are reduced as human beings, we all suffer, we all are harmed in ways too deep to even see. We violate each other and then we return to base and eat a steak and sip a beer. A little touch football, and a good nights sleep, and tomorrow, well who knows, live, die, kill, wound, cry, laugh, it’s anybody’s guess. The insanity of such a life is clear isn’t it?

When will we learn that war is not an answer, but a stop gap for a people who have become too uncreative to come up with anything else?

Okay, so some of you know that I do book reviews here from time to time. In return, the publisher sends me the book free of charge.

So, I got to thinking. Yes, I think way too much, but that’s life. Anyhow, I figured, hey, this gig might work for other things as well. Since I am in need desirous, of various technological marvels, I figured that perhaps if I reviewed them, the manufacturer might send me one free of charge.

At least it seems a good idea. Now I realize that books are cheap by comparison, so I figured that maybe I should give them a free preview of what I can do. What follows is that, and I’ll be sending it off to Mr. Jobs directly. No doubt he will be appreciative and I do mean in a give away kinda way.

As you may know, the number of apps that now accompany an IPhone is something like 3,624,821. And that figure grows daily. Now, it is important that you are familiar with them so that you can make good choices, so unless you have 2.4 years of intense study time available in the next 2.4 years, read on.

I thought I’d give you a review of some of the more important and useful apps you can find on your IPhone. Believe me, I was pretty astounded at the range of usefulness available, and the diversity of areas in one’s life that can be touched.

      1. The Microwave app. This is just a super help to those of us so busy that we don’t always have time to get a hot lunch or dinner. Just pop the food you wish to cook into your car glove box, set the app to the desired heating time, push the delayed start button, drop the IPhone in the glove box and shut the door. A nice little ding will go off when your food is ready. Eat and watch the traffic!

        2. The Name Alerter. Do you have a phobia about a name? One that just makes you cringe and run for cover. One that makes you sweat and start praying? Well, we have the app for you. Just type in the name of the name you hate (Orville does it for me) and set the app to “on.” Then as you move down the streets or hallways, you will be alerted should an Orville come within ten meters of you. Time to avoid those embarrassing meetings. Use the headphones if you wish to be polite.

        3. The Animal Mover. If you ever get out in the country, you’ll find this app a must. Ever been on a old rock road when some critter popped out and just stood in the middle of the road? Well if you have, you know how silly a city slicker can be in trying to coax a deer, horse, or lazy sow off the road. This app matches the animal picture to the creature before you, and when activated, lets out a farmer’s call that will surely have your beast scooting back homeward in search of it’s dinner. Read SUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEE!

          4. The Contest Enterer.  Are you one of those people who can’t stop entering sweepstakes games and contests? Well this app will make life so easy for you! Just set it on, enter your general name and address and other pertinent personal information, and the app will surf the Internet 24 hours a day, entering you in every one it meets. You will be surely rich in less than 6 months using this method. Of course, you will pay a hefty fee in app usage up front, but with a guarantee of such riches, how can you not sign up?

           5.  The Talking Points Blogger. Have a lot to do? Having trouble finding subjects to write about on your blog? Well, bloggers swear by this app, that allows you to lock into the liberal or conservative punditry machine. Each day you can sign in and get the talking points for the day for all the important subjects you so desire to complain about. You’ll be mouthing the same words as Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, or if you wish, (ugh) a Shawn Hannity or Uncle BillO. Never be at a loss for something to say again!

          6. The Deprogramming Fundie App. You had to know I’d love this one. Just turn this app on and it will remind you every hour that dinosaurs did not walk with humans, God did not pen the bible, and Mark was written before Matthew. A lovely subliminal program is available to use at night while you sleep. If you have a relative mired in biblical literalism, don’t miss this opportunity to save them from an atrophied brain. As they say, it’s a terrible thing to waste!

            7. The Pet Thinker app. How many times have you asked your pet, “what do you want?” only to be met by a stare and continued wagging? How many meows have you misinterpreted? Well, with this app, just use the handy video recorder to tape the behavior of your pet, and then submit it for analysis. An answer will be soon forthcoming and you can answer your pets needs without all that angst. Your pet will thank you for being a better master, and you can think about applying for that “goat whisperer” job you saw in the want ads last week.

            8. The OCD app. Do you suffer from OCD? Turning on and off lights three dozen times. Checking to see that the door is locked eight times every evening? Worrying about whether you shut off the coffee at work? every night? Well, with your OCD app, you can serve the needs of your neurotic compulsions. Just set the app to “on” and the button will periodically call you to turn it off again. You can set it for periods of every five minutes, every ten, etc. You will get the satisfaction of knowing that indeed the button was on when you turn it off each time! Don’t miss this one folks!

             9. The Road Rage De compressor. Cut off in your lane of traffic by a rude driver? Don’t risk giving him the finger and finding a gun up your nose. This app pointed at the offending car, connects to the cell phone of the driver and locates his home phone. You can then call and leave a really really insulting message on his phone, one that will get all that anger off your chest without endangering your life. A must application for anyone who travels on a regular basis. All traveling sales people should have this one.

             10. Chocolate Range Finder. With this app in the on position, you will be alerted any time you are within 100 feet of chocolate. Never walk around in fear that you won’t be able to feed your chocolate needs. Sub-applications for this app include a sonic “key” that can be used to open closed places of business (assuming they have chocolate inside), and one that all the women are raving about, the “calorie destroyer” sub application. Just point it at the chocolate delight and watch those calories melt away.

So, how’s about it Mac? Can you get me one of those IPhones for free so that I might continue to “review” all these amazing apps? I’m more than sure your sales are already going up based on this one alone!

I may be somewhat unusual. Other’s could speak to that more clearly than I. But I think humans are benefited by periodic assessments of goals and means. I think that what works today may not tomorrow and innovation is key to our journey.

As winter approaches and thoughts turn to more indoor pursuits, it seemed a good time to reflect on what I am doing, what I want to be doing, and what I should be doing.

First, as you may already know, I function with some negatives. I’m lazy. No point in denying that. I’m also steeped in the concept of delayed gratification. This helps to get around the laziness by pairing what I don’t want to do with something I do want to do, and then denying the latter until the former is done.

I also function with a reasonable amount of guilt. Note I said reasonable, since I think a certain amount is useful in motivating thought and change. But when all is said and done, I don’t do as much as so many others, and I feel self-absorbed to a degree.

I have come to conclude after nearly six decades upon this whirling dervish of a planet, that we as sentient creatures need five needs addressed to be whole. They are, in no particular order, the needs of the body, the needs of the personality, the needs of the intellect, the spiritual, and lastly the creative impulse.

I think most of these needs require attention mostly every day, but at minimum, several times a week. So, for no other reason than I thought of it last night, I thought it was wise to assess how well I’m doing and make whatever adjustments are necessary or at least compelling.

The needs of body are obvious: food. Not just any old food, but good nutritious food. I’m fairly good at that, though many would conclude we eat a diet too high in both fat and sugar. No matter, we don’t eat out of boxes or freezer sections. I C O O K. I make biscuits, I don’t open a box of Bisquick or Jiffy or that tube stuff. I make salsa, I don’t unscrew jars containing manufactured “salsa.” I do it, because I enjoy cooking and frankly my digestive system appreciates it. I can bake a loaf of bread with work time down to about  10 minutes. I figure it counts that we don’t eat a lot of additives and preservatives.

I walk a mile a day, six days a week. I seldom miss. I use a treadmill if the weather is too nasty to walk outside. I don’t like it, but I admit that it makes me feel better than when I don’t.

Psychological needs are those things we need to feel loved and respected, valuable. Much has to do with relationships and building good ones that compliment one’s needs. A touchy feely person is not advised to try for an intimate relationship with a cold withdrawn type. You get the drift. We need validation, acceptance. We get them from friends and relatives. We feel satisfaction in finishing tasks. Any number of things throughout a day can be psychological pluses in our lives. We seek to cultivate them.

Intellectual needs are met by thinking hard on subjects that don’t always make themselves easy of understanding. We have to stretch, concentrate, push beyond our comfort zone. We need to learn every day, and things that matter to us and to the world. Reading can be the solution to this, but so can judicious use of the television and computer. I read a  lot during the day. I’m reading upwards of 4-5 books at the present for instance.

Spiritual needs are essential and must be met daily I think. This can mean any manner of traditional religious practice, but may involve no religion at all. Walking in nature and seeing the immensity of the world can point one to something larger than self. That is the point here. It is getting outside yourself and your petty needs and wants. It is engaging in the greater world. I can imagine sitting at the ocean’s edge, steeped in the tides, and sensing the enormity of the moon and it’s power on this planet. I can, religiously, see this in the context of a God who has created a series of laws that permit this evolution of the universe.

Lastly, we need to feel creative. And here we have many choices. This doesn’t have to relate solely to a hobby, but can be more mundane things. It can also be one’s life work. This would be most true of those who are artistic and make their living from art. But the rest of us can do it as well, through crafting and cooking, gardening, and so forth. We create beauty, serenity, life.

When we have balance between these various components, I believe we are in synchronicity with the world and with life itself. We are nurturing all those parts of ourselves that require attention.

Since we live in a world that tends to keep score, we may neglect one or more for long stretches. We may be forced to “schedule” fun time and intellectual time, and relationship time. If we needs to that, then we should, for neglecting any of these for long leads to imbalance and inauthentic living.  Our human experience is meant to be expressed and experienced in all it’s totality. To miss any aspect is to deny ourselves in a real way.

Think about where you are today. What is being neglected in your life. Do something about it today. Take charge of being human again.

Which all goes to establish why there isn’t much of a post today. We shop once a month. The Contrarian accompanies me, and makes it less miserable than it otherwise is. Trying to shop alone for a full month is just too much. With the two of us, it is manageable and standable.

The day’s reward is that I don’t cook on shopping day, and we bring home Chinese takeout. After the crap is all safely put away, we both collapse, and one of us quickly says, “I’m so glad that is done for another month!”

Actually, I’m rather disorganized again. It seems I am always behind these days. I need very much to update my blogroll here, and as haven’t so far. I guess there are about half a dozen or a bit more new blogs that I think you might enjoy taking a look at. When I get to it that is.

Things at Church are slowing down, as I’ve now finished my four weeks as facilitator of our adult bible study class. That means a bit more time I can devote to EFM class prep and reading. There always seems more to read.

Additionally, I have been contacted by yet another publisher about reviewing a book. This is more complicated and may involve a guest post by the author and some other promotional type things. Just as I set this up, I went to the mailbox last afternoon to find another book there. Again, from a publisher I’ve never heard of. So my book reviewing seems to be going along nicely, if still having no monetary value to me!

Yesterday, I can probably conclude that I did something you did not. I played herder to a stray calf that had come through the fence in pursuit of the grass (being always greener on the other side  as you well know). I called the Contrarian, who had taken the splitter to a friends and was splitting wood. He suggested I “herd” the dumb calf. And so I did, yelling and whooping it up until it crossed over and went over the hill.

At the time, I assumed it found mom and the rest of the herd and would be heard of no more. But such is not the truth. As I opened the door to let out the dogs, some hours later, said calf, (Henry I believe) as back at it, munching away. The dogs chased it off, and so far, we haven’t seen him back. We saw the rest of the herd as we returned from shopping. Hopefully he is regaling them with tales of the spooky lady and the slavering dogs who came within a hairs breath of ending his life.

In the fields and on the roads the land is awash with farmers and machinery, all doing as best they can to clear fields. Fields are soggy but stable for the most part. We are driving over ours now, to avoid the low spots and are muddy still. There is just no way to drain this water.

I seem to see eagles and hawks everywhere. They love this time of year when the fields are being cleared as the rodents are more obvious to them I assume. Deer find the time stressful, since much of there field cover is being mowed to the ground. I’ve so far met a couple on the road at night coming home from EFM or church related activities.

I’ve had no luck on the SAD issue. I am told that full spectrum bulbs aren’t the same and can’t be expected to work. To buy the lamps is “expensive” as these boxes are highly over priced. So I guess I’ll just sit in the sun when it is available!

All about is now that horrid brown of nothingness that is the later fall. The leaves seem to drop precipitously in just a few days, and well, its all bare now. My thoughts turn to yarn and sweaters and stuff like that. I so want to make a pair of socks, but am loath to think I can understand the instructions and these 4 needles.

I need to be back to my lists, so that I can at least have a stab at meeting all my commitments. Today is not a day where that is gonna happen. But then, at least we got that shopping done!

I confess to being confused now and again. Like the other day, when I was chastised by a creationist for leading off a blog with a story about McDonald’s and Iceland, and then switching over to discuss religious homeschooling. Somehow she found my blog style unfair.

I just barely mentioned to the dear brain-impaired one that blogging has no real rules. And the point of blogging is precisely to speak one’s own mind about any topic one deems discussable. I would have assumed that such a basic understanding of the genre would have been obvious, but I guess one learns not to use the term obvious when talking to a person who has long since given up the art of thinking.

I was called a “liberal” as if such a connotation would send me running for cover. I was told I had a thorn in my side. (With all due respect, I think it best not to make analogies to the great Saint Paul in criticizing me!) I am a liberal, and I might add, a fairly radical one. My husband, the Contrarian would be happy to tell you all about it. He is what I might term a fiscal conservative/libertarian, and a social liberal. He’d be the first to tell you that if it were announced that George W. Bush discovered a cure for cancer, I’d find a reason to find that an abomination. And perhaps I would.

I have no truck with what I consider insanity on the part of anyone who proports to have an opinion that I find wholly out of the ballpark of rationality. Dubya is an idiot, thus if it were declared he had cured cancer, I’d be highly dubious that the great stupid one could do that. By the same token, when one declares themselves to be a creationist, I know I’m not dealing with a person who has any sense left. It’s as rational as asking us all to believe that suddenly, 2+2=5. You can cite all the nonsense you wish, all the sites run by  the opportunists you wish, and 2+2 still will be equalling 4.

I am fairly open about my own shortcomings. I am often wrong. I invite reasoned discourse. I have often been convinced of the arguments of others. But again, if you are gonna try to explain how just maybe 2+2=5, we are wasting time. God created your mind too, and if you no longer trust the senses you were given, then well, we can’t communicate much can we? You live in a fantasy while I inhabit the real world.

Education is sacred to me. It doesn’t have to be formal, but a fine mind is worth going out of one’s way to sit at the feet of. I want to learn. I seek those who are more learned, not those who have boxed themselves into a world that promises salvation by denying what is clear to the rest of the rational world.

The Contrarian often told me that one of the smartest individuals he had ever known was a kid without a high school education. He couldn’t be bothered with the system. When he became interested in something he went to a  library and he read. For as long as it took. Until he knew what he wanted to know.

I harp on critical thinking, because frankly, it’s embarrassing to accept the proposition that so many Americans are stone cold ignorant. I’ve been amused at reading some of the entries in my high school Facebook group. You can spot the ones that never went beyond high school. And that is scary, because contrary to what they say, I didn’t learn much at high school. Nothing of real lasting value. I learned the basic curriculum which is designed to make one literate and a good citizen. Nothing much more.

I value curiosity. I think that in some ways, it is the defining characteristic of humans. Oh, no doubt chimps and elephants and other animal species show signs of curiosity (not to mention cats of course) but in the main, humans are the ones who are curious just because they want to know. And that indeed makes us special. Muffling that, by instilling doctrine into a mind, is both dangerous and heart breaking to me.

Curiosity demands that we follow the facts wherever they lead. We are not permitted to set the “end” and then see if we can amass evidence to support it. And curiosity is what is lacking in the stultified mind of the creationist and others of that ilk. They have opted for safety and a false sense of that to be sure. They have simplified life so that a book holds the answers to life for them. They cannot live with uncertainty. The sculpt the book so that it is certain, at least for them. It is not for anyone who has bothered to take any actual class in biblical studies or theology.

Not all fundamentalists are cut from the same cloth. There are those who don’t see the bible as history or science and thus don’t expect answers to those questions in it. But they tend to see the bible as a moral compass, and in that they are not too awfully far from the mark. It is at least the considered conclusion of a number of men of what morality should be.

At the other extreme is the creationist, YEC proponent. These are the extreme phobic minds that are desperate for a clear cut map for the future. They don’t want a God that is mysterious. They want a great white human type that they can understand that chastises and rewards, forgives and commands. Whose ways are inscrutable but to whom blind faith is required for the big pay off.

I make no apologies for railing against this latter group. The reason is simple. They can and often do get the notion that God requires them to push this belief system on a stubborn polity. And when they reach that conclusion, then violence is all too often a logical step. Like the enviro-fascists and PETA fanatic, at some point, to show your dedication to the “truth,” action is required. If someone gets hurt? Why so be it. Lots of people got hurt in the bible for not following God’s commands. Such twisted thinking to justify violence just doesn’t sit well with me.

And frankly, I suspect other motives. It seems curious that so called Christians are for torture, for wars of choice, for the death penalty, against health care reform, against redistribution of wealth, against gays, against women (for the most part), for Patriot Acts, but against hate crime legislation, and unbelievably against care for the environment. The list is endless. Just about the opposite of what you would expect of a Christian. But pretty much what you would expect of someone who doesn’t want what he/she has to be taxed away in an equatable distribution so that the poor can be cared for. So, fair or not, I don’t trust ‘em.

Just sayin’.

For a really good discussion on the present state of the religion versus evolutionary debate read Evolution and Creation at Religious Dispatches.

The trouble with saints, is that, well, they are just so darn saintly. Not exactly people that regular folks like myself can hope to emulate. I’m told actually, and I can confirm it based on some of my readings, that most if not all saints were actually not quite as saintly as we might think.

I don’t mean that they were not saintly as they are purported to be, but rather than being human, they too suffered from challenges and desires common to all of us. It is perhaps in the way they dealt with these difficulties that separates them from us.

And frankly, it shouldn’t. I recall, as a about to become Roman Catholic, being told that everyone should aspire to being a saint. This was not some egotistical adventure, but something that each and every one of us could accomplish.

The trouble is, that we tend to focus on the inspiring aspects of our saints, and that makes them a bit too untouchable, and us a bit too arrogant in wishing to be like them. Like I said, if we had a more balanced view of them, perhaps we wouldn’t find the task so daunting.

No doubt some folks dismiss the idea of working toward sainthood, simply because they don’t want to “work” that hard at being good. It’s far easier to knowingly sin and then ask forgiveness. It just seems like being a saint is, well, too prissy and too boring. All the spice of life is sacrificed in pursuit of the goal. Most of us don’t want to lead grey bland lives.

So seeing our saints as human and thus subject to sin as we are, is helpful. One of my favorites has always been Augustine, bishop of Hippo, father of the church, and frankly, he came up with a fair amount of dogma that we could have better done without.

The reason I love Augustine so much, is that frankly, at least  at the beginning, he was most human. Born of a Christian mother, and pagan father, Augustine, for some years lived the life of a rhetorician, keeping a mistress and fathering a son.

His mother, Monica, prayed for her son daily so we are told, and finally, as Augustine recounts in his “Confessions”  he saw the truth of the scriptures and converted. Yet, even in his initial euphoria of faith, he was practical.

He asked God to take from him the desire for sexual pleasure, but he added, “but not just yet.” And in that, Augustine was oh so very human. One has to move slowly into this new kind of life, best not to go cold turkey with everything!

Stories like that make saints approachable. They remind us that we are potential saints as well. We can have serious shortcomings, but in time, we can overcome them. We can fight one or more over a lifetime, and still be accounted as holy. Indeed, Wisdom 3:1-9 from today’s liturgy, says that those accounted lost by the world, are safely with God and at peace. There, they work with God to effect God’s good pleasure for the world.

Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day. We remember 0ur favorite saints, and we remember all who have died. We cannot of ourselves determine who is saintly and who is not. That is up to God. But we can and must hope that our friends and relatives, those that precede us in death, have indeed found the peace of God in eternal comfort. We feel their presence, and we can feel their urging.

No doubt they felt in their lifetime unworthy of any such appellation. We account them saintly by their behaviors and their words, yet we can never be sure. Certainly they had no such expectations.

How do we become saintly? I would argue that it is not by deliberate design in creating a lifestyle that is “saintly,” whatever that might mean to anyone. I think, in the end, it is simply having faith that God calls us to love and to serve. Having that faith, and believing that it is worthwhile and in keeping with his desire for us, we act in a manner that upholds that love and service.

Perhaps the cutting edge of that life is to maintain that faith, and thus the love and service during those times in our lives when we don’t want to exert ourselves, and most especially when we feel too weak to stand before the world as witness. If we can find meaning in our suffering, if we can find God sharing that suffering with us, then we may find the strength to do as Job did, and as so many of the patriarchs and well known saints did. We will let it be, and we will continue to love.

We will stand alone, if need be, quietly speaking our faith, calmly walking the path, because we truly can see no other way. To others, we may appear foolish, but we trust in God’s intimate presence to us and we wish to share that joy with the world.

Saints, for all the hoopla, were ordinary people, who often through extraordinary circumstances, did things they might never have dreamed possible. Each of us can prepare ourselves for that. Don’t sell yourself short, you may be a saint in the making. God surely hopes so.

Most of you know that I am transported from time to time into other universes. This is never with my consent, but I’ve grown to accept it. My brain cannot process certain insanities on planet Earth, and so it probably is a good thing.

Last night, I awoke from dear slumber, realizing that for sure, the axis of the earth had tilted just a smidgen quite suddenly. The reason?

Why, McDonald’s has closed its doors in Iceland. Indeed, a near panic has ensued as frantic Icelandicers, or Icelandics? rush to get their last fix. So goes America’s best hope of supersizing  the rest of the world to it’s obesity level. It is a government plan put in play to prove what we all know already, America is exceptional, and fat drives it!

It seems impossible to conceive that McDonalds could suffer such a set back. I mean, let the banks close, let the hospitals overflow, let the fields run empty of potatoes, but good God,  how can humanity continue with any human not within ten minutes of a Ronald Mickey D? The sheer inhumanity of the thing is enough to make one choke with tears.

I figured that from that, everything else would go downhill. And it seemed to. The other day, I was reading the remarks of a creationist, who so happily and proudly proclaimed that she had used a particular creation site to extensive use during her homeschooling days. Does this mean that there are zero requirements for homeschooling to get that diploma?

I mean, do ya just call the state education department, and say, “send me one of dem diplomas. I’s ejucated nows?” Are there no standards of any kind? Or is this part of the great lie that creationist parents put their kids through? Here’s what you need to say to get the grade, but pssst, we don’t believe any of that is true. Is this not child abuse?

I can point to any number of people today who were told such lies as kids. Most all of them have since rejected their parents theology, in favor of none, sad to say. And they of course now know better about science as well. I find it sad, and it makes me mad. We are something like 31 in the world now in science and math, and we can thank in some part such intellectually bankrupt parents who have driven their kids into a scienceless world all in the name of feeling good emotionally. Shame on them. Believe what you want, but you’re kids–they are not property to be used as your emotional crutch.

I think this sums things up rather well.

Your children are not your children,

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

you may strive to like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves the bow that is stable.

                                       Kahil Gibran

I guess I come down on the side that parents have a duty to teach their kids morals and ethics, and how to use their minds with discriminating care. We need kids who can think critically and separate the chaff from the wheat. We don’t need to teach them what to think so much as how to think. Then we need to expose them to as varied a world as possible, and to as much varied thought as possible. It is up to them, in communion with their conscience and/or God to decide what to make of it all.

Humans are incredibly resilient. We, most of us that is, turn out okay, even against rather heavy odds against us. That doesn’t mean and shouldn’t mean that parenting is largely not important. It is. And we have become complacent to the fact that most of us turn out okay, and so nothing need watch over the parenting that goes on. But surely, we owe our kids more than to be raised as automatons of ideologically locked down humans. We owe them the true freedom of thought unhindered by psychologically driven mindsets essential to the parent, but not necessarily needed by the child.

Why we have never felt the need for parenting classes as the norm is beyond me. The wreckage of relationships is all around for the viewing. Can’t we do better than this? Are we going to live forever in the land where parent/child relationships are so sacrosanct as to be untouchable absent physical abuse? Do we not care that emotional and educational abuse are rampant in many of our homes? Is there not a better way?

Those of us who live in the country, are very conscious of our fashion. You may have guessed this already from plenty of pictures which show us in fine farmer garb–the one piece denim bib is a great example. Functional and oh so elegant. Just a bow tie clip-on for the t-shirt and you are ready for any dinner party.

The other day, I was fashionably clad in my rubber muddies, walkin’ through the watery muck of the lane, when my brother-in-law caught up to me on his backhoe. He had been hauling some hay to the cattle who did  not have have benefit of the corn silage, since the fields were still not done due to crap weather.

As he shut off the motor and opened the cab, I saw that he too was clad in rubber muddies and but for the size, no doubt, they were identical to mine.

I mused on this fine sense of  the fashionista shared by us both, when I realized upon heading back down the hill into the timber that the trees were indeed nearly bare of leaves. “Damn, it seems he was right again!” This to mean, the Contrarian, who but a few short weeks ago had predicted in Nostradamus fashion, “I think we are going to lose our leaves this year.”

Not to be all depressed and such, since last early spring, he confidently predicted that we would have leaves this year, and of course, that too transpired.  The Contrarian is proving himself to be quite good at this prognostication business. One is tempted to say the same of many things in the bible, until one learns that often, the book in question with its “prediction” was written well after the event in question happened. At least the Contrarian announces his predictions well in advance.

Anyway, such thoughts give rise to still more ideas and sneaky partially worked out theories. I’m always happy when I see that I’m not alone in devising such philosophical questions of the month. This morning, Charlie Gibson, late of GMA and now nearly late of the Nightly News, was interviewing John Irving, the writer. Gibson in one of his better moments, asked, “Do you think one can find real happiness in one’s own imagination?”

What prompted this jaw dropping, stop in the street kind of question, is anyone’s guess. Yet it seemed to me, worthy of some thought. I think that you can, and in fact some people do. Then again, some can’t and some don’t.

Do you construct day-dreaming scenarios of lives unlived? I mean do you have a dream house/job/spouse/hobby/you name it, that you construct delicately and with precision, making it all just perfect? Is it your place to escape the cares and turmoils of the day? Is it a place where Johnny Depp falls in love with you, forgetting that you are nearly though not quite old enough to be his mother? Does Halle Berry hang on your every word while sipping Dom Perignon?

I can see how such worlds could be happy. Truly I can. I rather suspect that liberals engage in such mind play more so than Republicans. Just a guess. No polling or scientific evidence. But there is evidence that liberals are more unhappy than Republicans. We tend to take on the woes of the world and grouse about them. We have guilt as to what we have, given that so many have almost nothing. We can’t compartmentalize as well it seems as Republicans apparently can.

We probably drink more and drug more and sex more, though that last may truly be wrong. Republicans with their public stance on morality and their dirty little minds creating all kinds of kinky plays which they all too often cannot help but attempt to act out, may in fact engage in more sexual naughtiness than liberals. I dunno.

But escapism is escapism as they say, and so I suspect more liberals have a fantasy get away that allows them to unwind from the mean little world that we inhabit every day. And perhaps there, we do find the happiness we are so prone to deny ourselves in reality.

Someone the other day suggested that liberals “talk a good game” but that somehow we don’t live it. Actually, I think its the conservatives who act rather differently than they talk. The evidence seems on our side. I have a ton of liberal friends (Facebook proved that) and a huge number of them are very actively engaged in regular service to their communities through food pantries, homeless shelters, health care clinics, and such. They aren’t paid, they just do it, because they have to do something to help. Our unhappiness at the state of affairs in the world forces us to engage and make a difference, no matter how small that might be.

I’m not suggesting that conservatives don’t do charity work, but I suspect they see it somewhat differently than liberals do. I could be wrong on that. I’m wrong on a lot of things. But I feel comfortable in saying it. I hear way too much about how we “have to have  the poor” as a means by which the rest of us can perfect our salvation, to think any differently. And then there is the failure of most conservatives to agree to anything that smacks of redistributing wealth in this country to make life reasonable for ALL. They start raising words like, lazy, and pulling oneself up by one’s boot straps. (I checked, and my muddies don’t have any boot straps by the way.)

Just so ya know, this is what you get when I’m sun deprived. It’s SAD isn’t it?

I could be wrong, but I rather suspect that kids love science. I mean ever see how kid’s eyes light up when some cool scientist mixes a brew of this and that, and it bubbles and volcanoes out of the beaker? Or turns an unearthly hue of green? I dare say no kid is bug-eyed over Silas Marner or the capital of Georgia the way they ooh and ahh over “magic” tricks in the science lab.

I confess that I respect with deep appreciation the scientific method and all that it has produced for mankind. I don’t worship it, as some of the right wing crazies would have it. That is just their inane  way of being defensive for their hypocrisy of loving the kind that makes their life comfortable and hating the kind that messes with their interpretation of life, the universe and everything.

And who can forget, all those long years ago one William Proxmire who used to make regular sport of science expenditures that went for what he thought were “frivolous” research. Who cares whether bed bugs breed in sunlight or only in the deep darkness of night? Why are tree frogs never more than three feet from a tree in the rain forest?

What Proxmire, who claimed he was trying to protect the American taxpayer against being gouged for waste of time pet projects, didn’t realize, is that many of these what sound like absurd research projects often, down the road, produce information that is most useful to humankind. Yep, and the beauty of it from the scientists point of view is that there is really no good way of knowing what might be important in thirty, eighty, or two hundred and forty years.

And there is such a thing as obtaining information for its own sake and fleshing out the story of human existence to the greatest degree possible.

But I confess, that sometimes, even I wonder about the efficacy of this study or that. And sometimes the results, touted as “stop the presses” seem rather shall we say obvious? to me?

Such is the case with a story from Science Digest today.  The study, was of some importance to me, a home cleaner, pusher of dirt around. Where in the heck does all that dust come from? I mean we live a full 1/2 mile from the road. I recall, living in suburbia in my childhood, albeit on a rock road, the wafts of dusty air billowed off the road with each passing car, and in summer, directly in the front door. That made sense. But how does this dust collect when I am deep within the wooded splendor of the meadow?

The scientists report that, hold on to your hats kids, most dust, about 60% originates from OUTSIDE!!!!! Yes, you heard that right. Outside. I mean who would have guessed. The choices were, inside, and outside. It was a safe bet that outside is where more dirt is than inside right? I mean I can see it tracked in by dogs every day. Muddy little paw prints, and the cats patter in and out the kitchen door soon making a trail of tiny little prints. I can read tea leaves. I can figure this out.

But scientists were surprised. So they say. It would appear likely that most scientists, (those studying dust at least) don’t dust. So I guess it must come as a shock. I dunno. It seems like a waste of time and money to tell me the obvious. And I’m being polite, remembering the company. I’m not telling you what the dust consists of!

Okay, I will. It’s dirt, from OUTSIDE. Oh and some of it is human skin. Yech…now that does turn a tummy or two doesn’t it? Who wants to think about that? Nobody, except those that get off on showing microscopic “pictures” of counter tops with (shudder) fecal material.

It makes me want to run right out and throw away the butter that the cat licked yesterday. I mean really!

The Contrarian claims that the kids of the people who came to cart away dead horses and pigs and cows were the healthiest of all. Ya gotta eat a peck of dirt before ya die, said the Contrarian’s grandmother, and one likes to take solace in that. I’m not dirty, lazy, and so forth, I’m merely being healthy. We follow the ten second rule like everyone else. If you pick it up off the floor within ten seconds, nothing had time to latch on. It’s still clean!

They claim that there are bad things in the air, like lead and arsenic, and these land on objects. Not so good for items you lick. Dogs lick a lot of things, including themselves, but I always was told that dog mouths are much cleaner than our own. So I figure the dog is taking the chance in giving me a licky kiss.

So, I don’t know what to do at this point. Maybe we need to rethink where we build our showers. Perhaps they need be outside, on the porch. Then we can track less of the “dust” in. Kinda not such fun in the winter, but nobody will object much in the summer months. In fact the dirty old man down the street, hey he just might take to walking by your house a lot more often if you are singing in the shower on the porch.

It left me scratching my head, and wondering what to do. If you have any answers that don’t involve any more housework, I’d like to hear ‘em. I don’t like housework. Didn’t I tell ya that?

The GOP has been using some version of “just say no” for some time now. One is tempted to ask, “how’s that workin’ for ya?”

From Pumas on, they’ve been banking on the “nope, no way” constituency to materialize into a real force. So far, it’s been a wash. The Pumas as you recall, were all those women who were Hillary supporters who were supposed to flock to the GOP once McCain chose that woman for all seasons, Sarah Palin as his running liar.

The Pumas of course never materialized, and Sarah soon grew wearisome to a thinking public.

Since the election last year, it has been the unmitigated decision of the Rethug leadership to simply oppose everything. And it seems, like Nancy Reagan’s anti drug program, not to be making much difference, other than to make them look clearly what they are: crybabies and bad sports who trade public welfare for being contrary.

They oppose the extension of hate crimes legislation,  although we have had it for decades now without the world coming to an end. Some Rethugs found themselves opposing legislation proposed by Franken which would eliminate a contractual prohibition to sue rapists who worked for the company. I mean do you really want to be publicly on the wrong side of that one? “NO, I think Haliburton should be able to keep women from suing Haliburton employees who rape them. After all, profits must prevail!”

Similarly, when you look at net neutrality legislation, what do you find? Yep, you guessed it, the Rethugs are against it. As someone said, all you need do is look who subsidizes the Republican by way of contributions to know whose side he or she is on. I mean who doesn’t want the Internet free of priority speeds for certain companies?

And then there is my favorite of all, posts on Facebook. One of our less than stellar brains posted a report on how many wars and deaths had occurred since the United Nations had been instituted. The lead headline for the piece was something like “How’s that peace doing for ya?” Well, first of all, dumbed down, the UN has not started any wars and has not aggressively set out to kill anyone. They try to STOP wars and aggression. Not exactly their fault that they are not internationally supported by the member nations in peacekeeping. I mean, seriously, are you not for peace? I thought that was kinda a Christian thing as well as a mature human thing. Maybe I’m wrong.

Then we have the utter slimy behavior of the right wing pundits. I mean, the rank and file, the middle of the road, read SANE Republicans can’t even complain about the insulting load of bull that is barfed out upon the great illiterate uneducated tiny tots of the electorate. Lindsay Graham, who admittedly seldom comes up for air by pulling his head out of McCain’s backside, tried to complain about Beck, only to be booed off the floor at the next town hall meeting he attended. The crazy minority, most of which are holding up their bibles as pitchforks, won’t allow any criticism of the idiot brigade.

So, of course they feed them the swill they wish and damned be the facts. This has been demonstrated again and again with Hannity. He cuts comments and re-pastes them to say what he wants, even though the speaker clearly meant otherwise and said so DIRECTLY. Now we have Rush, quoting from a “paper” allegedly written by Barack Obama in college. The paper was critical of the constitution and was leaning toward socialism. Of course Rush was near orgasmic in his outrage. When a sycophant whispered in his ear that the paper was a hoax, he refused to apologize, but merely said, “well, we know he really believes this stuff anyway.” And the folks who listen to Rush, not being educated or even mentally average, lap it up in their unknowing bewildered world.

Finally we were watching Jon Stewart last night, hands down the best actual pundit in the business these days. He had on Susie Essman, of Curb your Enthusiasm. Susie suggested, and I had said the same, that Sarah Palin and folks like her, who continue to insist that dinosaurs and man walked hand in hand in our not so distant past, against ALL the evidence, should be prevented from using technology.

I agree wholeheartedly. Now I know that the illogical nut case can’t understand the hypocrisy of being okay with some science and vilifying other science, sometimes even when they overlap, as in medicine (which they like) and evolutionary biology (which they don’t) but the rest of us can. You can’t pick science as “good” when it transports you across town, allows you to call other countries, lets you surf the net, and cook dinner in minutes instead of hours, but then claim that science is some monstrous behemoth of atheistic mumbo jumbo designed to hate God and his Word. We know you are being disingenuous, but at least we do admit, you don’t get it, because you don’t have the smarts to get it.

All this being said, it’s not really a complaint. It’s really a  big thank you Republicans. You continue to satisfy your extraordinarily weird collection of misfit followers, but you totally turn off the middle and the left. Having five percent of the electorate in your pocket doesn’t win elections. So keep up the usual swill. I hear Bachmann and King and others of the “crazier than any loon” brigade has introduced legislation to commend and honor all those who marched against taxes. Good luck. Those two are good for another ten votes every time they open their mouths.

And so it goes. Just sayin.’

Image shamelessly stolen from MadPriest at "...I could be wrong"

I love going to church every Sunday. I seem to always find peace and a certain enlightenment there week to week. I deeply appreciate the congregation I am a part of. So many dedicated and hard working people.

I admit I am blessed to be in it. And yesterday’s liturgy had powerful teaching for us all.

The other day, I focused on Job, one of my favorite books of the bible. Today, I wish to revisit Mark’s treatment of the story of Bartimaeus, in chapter ten.

Mark is an interesting gospel. Written perhaps around 70 CE, and perhaps from the environs around a just fallen Jerusalem, his audience must have lived in some fear. The Romans were overrunning everywhere, and a small band of Jesus followers threatened no doubt that Empire even more than the traditional Jews with their strange practices.

Mark prepares his audience for further sacrifice, in fact making it clear that their lot in life may well be harsh and dangerous. They may only get their reward in death. Here we find the suffering servant at it’s best. Some suggest that Mark is the most reliable gospel we have, arriving first and before other gospel writers started to tailor their writings to reflect the emergent church and taking into account the realities of the day.

I tend to think that might be true, and that makes the story of Bartimaeus somehow more urgent, more real to us. Poor Bartimaeus, a man apparently not born blind, but certainly now so, begging for his food and shelter, unwanted, unclean, marginalized in a society built on class. Bartimaeus was the bottom of the barrel, just the kind of person Jesus tended to seek out.

He is helped or manages to find his way to the roadside where he has heard presumably that the faith healer Jesus will soon pass along. He hears the crowd approaching, and when he is sure that it is indeed him, he shouts out–”Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.”

The  crowd jostles him, and urges him to be quiet. We must assume that at least some of these are followers. Some indeed are disciples. We are close to Jerusalem,  close to the end, and these disciples have been with Jesus nearly three years at this point. No voice is heard in opposition to the stern words to Bartimaeus. Until Jesus, hearing, calls him forth. Then the crowd turns on a dime and also calls encouragement to the blind man.

This is the focus of the periscope. There have been a number of stories about blindness in Mark, both literal and figurative. Jesus has been telling his disciples of his coming passion and death. He has tried to explain to them that the they must serve–that is their greatness. They don’t get it. They never get it, not until the end. They remain on this road to Jericho, blind too.

They are insiders, privileged to be with the Master all this time, learning and watching, listening and one would hope, meditating on the wonders they behold, from this man/God. Yet, they raise no voice against the crowd “quieters.” They are serious, about the business of travel. They wish no slow down by some beggar along the way.

Until Jesus, once again radicalizes the scene. He stops, he calls, he heals, and then he moves on again toward his destiny.

Bartimaeus, asks to be made whole. Don’t we wish we were? Why are we ready to deny wholeness to another because it is inconvenient, time consuming, bothersome. We are asked to get our hands dirty. The poor don’t dress well, don’t smell very good, they are often unattractive.

Did Bartimaeus become blind because of sin? Certainly most in his society believed that he must have. Perhaps the disciples still did as well. But Jesus knew better. He asked Bartimaeus no questions of “qualification.” He didn’t call Bartimaeus to meet some standard of worthiness. One can argue, no doubt, that Jesus knew the answers, but that but begs the question. If Jesus has nothing to tell us about our humanity, then his teachings are worthless, mere platitudes to mere humans.

So we must conclude that such things did not matter to Jesus. What mattered to Jesus was one thing: do we have faith? If we do, then we deserve our healing. And perhaps, even when we don’t. There were other healings, many in fact, wherein no question was posed about faith. No all the healed were conscience at the time. But even when they were, Jesus never stated faith as a prerequisite. It merely made his job easier. Perhaps in reality, Jesus sought sincerity.

As Church, as people, we must ask the question of ourselves. Are we as insiders putting up stumbling blocks to the outsider who comes in need? Do we establish standards of entitlement? Are we turning away Bartimaeus on a regular basis because we have concluded he is unworthy of our charity? Do we have the right to ask at all? Is this not up to our God to fathom–the one who has known us in the womb, and knows our every thought? Who are we to judge?

Jesus radically turned upside down nearly everything he touched. He gave us a new way of looking at the world and relating to it and to each other. That is and should always be our focus. I am told that yesterday ONE BILLION people went to sleep without adequate nutrition. We grow enough for everyone, but ONE SIXTH of our population is hungry.

How many Bartimaeus’s out there are we turning away and denying? How many are you?

It seems to me, that if you are going to call someone a “hater of God’s word” then you have some obligation to know a tiny bit of what you propose to talk about.

At least that’s as I see it, and I have fairly loose requirements for giving opinions on most things. But a bit of actual knowledge seems appropriate lest you end up looking foolish as one person does.

The other day, I went to Facebook and was reading down my “friends” links. Friends is a broad term here, including a few high school classmates that I have come to see as fairly wrong headed in their thinking. Name that fundamentalist, creationist, YEC’er, birther, hater of all things Obama, and anti any government program which purports to assist the poor through taxes, something they don’t want apparently to contribute to.

In any case, the link was to an article about Cass Sustein, regulatory czar, who said that the government would be better off getting out of the marriage business and restricting unions to state civil contracts. Marriage should be something exclusive to religious institutions and other private groups.

Now one would think that the great uneducated wingnut right might agree. After all, they are mostly opposed to anything that involves government oversight–be it health care, business regulation, hate crime legislation. They are agin it all. So they should be for this. But think again. Logic has never played a part in the mind of a fundie.

Instead we are told that such persons who favor this are “hateful of God’s word.” Such a remark shows a complete and utter lack of any knowledge about the institution or the bible. No where as far as I can recall is there anything that purports to be a marriage that is conducted as a religious ceremony. Even the “marriage at Cana” seems bereft of any suggestion of religious involvement.

And surely this is the true when we look at history. What we find is that marriage was from the beginning a contract between the parties. Neither Greek nor Roman governments intervened in the marriage contract. Both marriage and divorce were by mutual agreement.

In the early Christian era, marriage also had nothing to do with the church.  In the 6th century in Europe, marriages were often polygamist in orientation and this was true of those who were baptised. Marriages were often considered political at the upper ranks. This mutual agreement system worked up until the 14th century as the common practice among all people.

I am told that people asked for and were ultimately granted a “blessing” that was conducted on the front of the church steps, but never inside the church proper. Finally, the church began registering these civil unions, but were in no manner required to do so. The state took no interest at all in such arrangements.

The Council of Trent, acting to counter the Reformation decreed that all marriages hence forth must be conducted by a priest to be “sacramental,” meaning recognized by the church as legal. The Anglican church permitted the normative “civil union” as late at 1753, when a formal church ceremony was required.

Although there are references within the Hebrew Scriptures that under certain circumstances, a brother might be required to “marry” a brother’s widow, such were not ceremonies involving the rabbi it seems, but rather mutual statements by the parties of intent to be “husband and wife.”

So any suggestion that someone who argues that we should return to a system whereby the state gets out of the “marriage” business, is on very firm historical ground. This is true for both Christians and non-Christians. It is also true that such a person is on firm ground as it relates to scripture. There is simply no provision for the church or synagogue to be enmeshed in the contractual obligations until a few hundred years ago.

It is simply the case that all “marriages” by mutual agreement were considered as “sanctified” in some sense by God. And the early and middle Christian communities never saw reason to involve the church in the process at all, for centuries thereafter. It seems rather that it was the wishes of the couples themselves which pushed for “blessing” and the church followed in some manner to fight the Reformation. Calvin did call for both state and church involvement, but that was in the 18th century.

Those that wish to vilify such a move today, have no basis for claiming that such a person or persons are “hateful of God’s Word” as it were. The Contrarian, who has long espoused such a belief, demands apology, though no doubt he will wait a long time to get one from the wonkettes who serve up every kind of untruth in order to express their hatred of all things Obama.

When God insists, I acquiesce. Either that, or God hounds me until I do. So it makes a lot of sense to give in immediately.

Such happened this morning as I prepared for my facilitating of the last of Job and Mark in the lectionary for tomorrow.

In reading a homiletical treatment of Job, I discovered something I had not realized: namely that Job became something of a radical after his transforming experience with God.

For those of you who don’t recall, I refer you to chapter 42:13-15. God has given all back to Job and more, blessing him with sons and daughters. The daughters are uncharacteristically named and in verse 15, they are given inheritance rights “like their brothers.”

I’ve never caught this before. That Job became radicalized by his encounter, giving to his daughters what was not common in those days, perhaps mostly unheard of, the right to inherit like the boys. They are raised from their lowly status as female and given a certain equality.

For those who think that the closing epilogue of Job serves to resurrect the cause and effect of retributive justice again, you are most certainly wrong. God upholds in fact Job’s protest against it both to his friends and God himself. Job is transformed by his personal encounter, realizing that this God of whom he once had  learned,  he now sees directly as participating at least in his misery.

And Job sees, perhaps as a shocking aha moment, that it is humans who must do the work of justice, rather than leave it to God. And so he does so in his new life after sorrow.

One of the dumbest most absurd explanations I have ever heard is from a bible thumping woman who claimed that global warming was a hoax perpetuated by “money and power” interests. We shall ignore the stupidity of failing to see that the oil cartel and various other industries who pollute with abandon, also are money and power interests who have a vested interest in not changing laws that would cut into their profit margin. They are the main perpetrators of the “nothing wrong here boss” idea of climate change.

But the biblicist announced that after the Flood, when God said that he would never destroy the earth again, well that means that nothing CAN destroy the earth, including silly notions of man-made behavior that destroys the ecosystem, making the planet uninhabitable for humans and most other life.

This refers to Gen 8:22, wherein God says: As long as the earth endures: seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. (We’ll skip too the relative nature of this statement. Winters of no freezing and summers of drought and 90’s is a season, it just may not be a nice one.) What is essential to read here is that this is preceded by God stating that never again will HE act to destroy. He makes no mention of others acting or failing to act to protect the earth.

Additionally and most importantly, it is clear throughout Genesis that God places man as his steward upon the land to care for it and all it contains. We are to act as God’s regents in the world. Time and time again, God reminds us of this. If God’s creation is good as he announced, than our stewardship must include protecting it against harm, especially harm caused by our own actions in “subduing” and bringing under our authority the earth itself.

A friend of mine has a “green” bible, wherein the text is in green whenever there is mention of environmentally favorable wording. Job seems full of such greening. God again and again speaks lovingly of his creation.

It is the height of stupidity and worse yet arrogance, to stand by and “let God” take care of it. God has made it clear that we, as his regents, have responsibilities too. We are not as it were “potted plants” to sit and consume and abuse the world, confident that daddy will clean up after us. That is sheer absurdity and mocks the very God we praise.

I had often thought of the Hebrew Scriptures as the history of a people’s walk with their God. As such, it is instructive on many levels, yet I never thought of it as a particularly radicalized document. No doubt, as we learn from Job’s “friends” it is not. They were assured that old and well-worn beliefs in retributive justice were at work. They continued to prod Job about his “sins.” They were echoing the beliefs of their time and of their history.

Yet, if we look closely, we can see, that even then, the amazing encounters between creature and Creator often led to  new radicalized views of the world and how life is to be conducted. Who would not argue for instance that Lamech’s overkill (no pun intended) at a small slight was significantly changed by the eye for eye doctrine, bringing retribution at least into some sort of equality with the gravity of the offense?

This of course, all would come as a great shock to the sola scriptura folks who never read ALL the bible in equality, but pick and choose in the most ugly cafeteria style, those verses that support their own particular needed worldview and reject or “forget” all the verses that speak to a new way of seeing and a new way of relating.

Don’t get me started on Mark’s treatment of Bartimaeus in the New Testament. Perhaps I’ll chew on that tomorrow. It calls to shame the bible thumpers who consistently find reasons why we don’t need to address social needs of the poor on a national scale. Jesus was the most radical of all, and yet they seem to have hardly known him. They are more like disciples than they realize.

I didn’t know what to make of this at first. Studies show that men who voted for McCain saw their testosterone levels fall when they found out he lost.

I feel, as you might expect, some responsibility for this. After all, I spent several months last year dragging out all the dirt on this dishonorable human being, assuring all that he was the worst possible candidate for president. And that woman (God how I hate that Sarah is of my sex), only added to the bonfire of reasons to vote for Obama.

It seems that my blogging rhetoric has worked to sissify, feminize, or otherwise reduce the beer swilling, rump scratching tendencies of some American males. I literally turned them into wusses when they realized that a sane and articulate human being was headed for the White House.

Of course, I don’t take all the credit. I’ll give some to Daily Kos, Huff Po, and all the other liberal bloggers, as well as due credit to Keith Olbermann, and that woman of the day, Rachel Maddow. But I do take some.

Okay, so my impact was statistically minuscule, less than the diameter of an atom. But still, I am in the company of those that did? Com’ on–please validate me!

Which makes it all the more remarkable that McCain still has a public forum at all. And he does, even though, as is pointed out, he really is a cipher these days. He holds no important committee chairmanships, has no legislation of note, has very little in the way of any constituency at all, and he is still pretty much hated by the loud-mouth swill that purports to speak for the Rethugs these days.

That public forum is the Sunday news shows, where McCain is called upon time and time again to give his two cents worth on various topics of which he is ill-prepared to pontificate upon. In other words, he was a dud and continues to be one when it comes to intellectual prowess on any subject except perhaps himself and his glorious history with the Vietnamese.

***

This next head scratcher comes from the Vatican. It seems that Karl Marx has been quoted by the Vatican as having some rather good criticisms of capitalism on balance. He is being re-appraised as are people like Galileo, Charles Darwin and others. All, initially slammed as too frightening in their approach, and thus anti-biblical, are now being embraced as the Church enters into a more mature understanding of itself, God and the Church.

Course Catholics see this as nothing more than not throwing out the baby with the bath water, something all intelligent beings do.

Here, the Vatican, like many other groups, are trying to reconcile the normal defense of capitalism with the alienation and strong income disparity that has resulted worldwide between the titans of industry and the vast majority of the rest of the world’s people.

Still these reassessments are coming fast. Only last year Galileo was resurrected as being accurate in his claims about the earth revolving around the sun, and only last February did the Vatican categorically declare that Darwin and ensuing evolutionary theory are not in the least incompatible with faith.

None of this will sit well, (the matters relating to Marx at least) with the extreme right wing of the Roman Church, which steadfastly has little or no interest in social concerns for the masses, seeing  government solutions as “socialistic” in orientation.  They prefer, like many on the extreme right to let “private” charity make its usual small dent in the problem, and at least salve the consciences of the faithful in their efforts to do the “good works” demanded for personal salvation.

***

Which takes us to the bible. You missed the connection? Well, no matter, travel forward. Madpriest has an excellent little rant on the far right and it’s penchant for dissembling into fantasy as it clings to what it wants to believe in the face of objective reality staring it in the face. Yes folks, I’m not the only one who finds the biblicist illogic maddening in the extreme and exceptionally self-serving and blinders created.

He says in part:

“People who believe that the Bible is totally the word of God. . . are deluding themselves and, as members of many minorities over the centuries will testify, this can lead to injustice and the infliction of pain on others (the exact opposite of what we are called to do in the teaching of Jesus Christ).”

That is the message here. It’s not that anybody cares what bilge anyone wants to believe, it what they do with that information that makes the difference. And the biblicists do work to harm society at large in their quest to protect their personal needs theology. It causes really harm and pain, and exactly the opposite of what God and Jesus intend.

***

Segueing perfectly this time, The furthest and youngest galaxy cluster has been announced as found by NASA. It is some 10.2 billion light years away, meaning the light we see now, originated from the system 10.2 billion years ago. Bad news for the YEC’ers.

Scientists don’t expect to find more, since this about stretches the limit time wise when sufficient time exists to pull these clusters together. If more are found, then scientists will be back at the drawing board rethinking things no doubt.

Observatories from around the world joined together in making this discovery and confirming it.

***

Which leads to food. Well of course it does. Science means thinking and thinking makes me hungry. This should be obvious.

I know, I know, you’ve read all the bilge above just to get to the good stuff, and here it is.

What are the 10 worst dining trends of the 21st century to date?

Oh you must have your own list, but in case you don’t–not being part of the intellectual effete arrogancy of the left,  so much maligned by the intellectual effete of the right, then do read on. Sure to be the topic of choice at the next cocktail party. And appletinis are SOOOO not in this year folks.

First on the list of has beens and never should have beens:

10: The bloomin’ onion  (aww shucks there goes the Super Bowl fare)

   9: Molecular gastronomy (your guess is as good as mine.)

   8: The $40 entree (I thought Applebee’s “two for twenty” was just about right)

   7:  The communal table (thought this happened only at church)

    6:  Proudly obnoxious fast food (read really really calorie and fat laden)

    5:  Knee jerk online reviews (sounds like a lot of whining to me)

    4:  Foam (did somebody forget to wash the soap off the pans?)

    3:  The menu as book (too much information makes us squeamish)

    2:  The chef as media whore (If you are talkin’ you ain’t cookin’)

     1:  Deconstruction (separating your peas from your taters)

Feel free to add your own ideas. I personally think that the chef at the Chinese Wok at the grocery store should use better containers to house the entrees. They leak all over the paper bag and are a mess when I am spooning them into the containers for reheating for dinner.  Just my number one peeve. I don’t mind the deconstruction of my rice from my entree however. I like to mix them myself.

If you are a Christian, you already know this. We are a bunch of rather schizophrenic folk. Yes admit it, we are. The chart at the right only barely glosses over the real tragedy locked within the pretty bands of green and blue.

We can’t agree on what we believe. Never have really, though at times, one faction or another was powerful enough to subdue the others and put them out of business. Not so much today. We add something like three hundred brand spankin’ new “We got the truth” sects per year and no end seems to be in sight.

I’m not sure whether such a state exists in other faith traditions, but I doubt any can meet our level of splintering. I’m not just talking bout the self-styled, “spiritual but not religious” types. I’m not talking about the “I am a spirit driven determiner of what God wants” type, though I have met one of those deluded nuts. Forms churches in her home and sends them out to do as she defines is right. She has no need of church herself, being a true prophet, just sent to explain the bible to the rest of us.

No, I’m talking about our penchant in Christendom to set up strong hierarchies of correctness and then jealously clinging to our dogmas as if only we could possibly get it right. It turns out that Anglicans are trying to pave the way for depressed Roman Catholics to find a home with them. And it turns out that Roman Catholics are now making it easier than ever for depressed Anglican/Episcopalians to find a home with them. Read group inclusion here.

The radicalized bible thumpers point at the Romans and yell, “whore of Babylon,” and five minutes later, inquire whether those same Romans will be at the “anti-abortion” rally tonight. The once properly outraged Catholic, retorts with “crazy Catholic-hater” and then makes a date for the next anti-Obama town meeting with their evangelical counterpart.

Christendom makes, as they say, strange bedfellows. Worse, Christendom and politics make dangerous bedfellows. Finding it odd that ultra conservative evangelicals (biblicists) join ranks with ultra conservative Protestants and Catholics to oppose health care reform, death penalty reform, wars, and climate change? So do we, but then, listen up.

The truth of the matter is that most of these “conservative” social “Christians” are just flat out conservatives who don’t want taxes, and don’t want to personally pay for the eradication of social ills. They prefer to live their “good life” and dabble in personal “charity.” That’s not so bad of course, if you will call it what it is. Jesus, doncha know said the poor would always be with us, and that some don’t deserve our help. They tell me he said that, though I can’t find it anywhere.

Unfortunately, they don’t stop there. They pick and choose the scriptures they sola scriptura their way through to defend their racist, selfish agenda, claiming they in some fit of righteousness, are actually doing God’s work. And worse, they have the temerity to point their finger at the social liberals of the world, many of whom are deeply religious, and call us captured of Satan.

No honesty is being promoted on either side, or among anyone. We are spiraling into the same morass as the country is with increasingly belligerent “sides”. No fairness is being upheld. No reference to the abiding love and compassion of our God and our savior Jesus is being promoted or even acknowledged.

We are poaching each other’s congregations, and at the same time, sniping away at anyone who thinks differently. We have the temerity to “speak for God.” Worse, we have the awful tendency, some of us at least, of demanding that God personally be responsible for that which God deliberately placed in our hands–the stewardship of both planet and each other.

Instead, we are holding shut out pocketbooks, claiming God will take care of it. Perhaps he will, but perhaps not in the way you expect. Perhaps, just perhaps he expects something more on our part than merely pointing a finger, and chastising each other for unfaithfulness to scripture and to God herself.

This is not a game of who has the most signed up on whose side. This is not a game of theological right or wrong, more right, more wrong. This is life, and we are here for a finite time and we have work to do.

Yesterday, as I exchanged pleasantries with dozens of people less fortunate than myself, I was forced to see that if the least among us can find reason to smile and share a laugh, to find common bond in simply being human, that perhaps the rest of us should take note.

Who are we that we pick and choose the verses that support the result we desire? We all do it dont’ we? Who are we to limit a God to a series of pages in a book, a book brilliant in it’s entirety, but convoluted and confusing, doubled back on itself in places, contradictory often and for good reason–it was written by human beings, with faulty information and sometimes faulty memories.

As Dr. McGrath says in his post day, what does it matter if Jesus thought that the “kingdom” would descend in its completeness within the lifetimes of many of his hearers? What is so wrong with Jesus showing us his human limitations? Whose agenda are we pushing here? Jesus or our own?

Have we become so invested in our rightness that we no longer even hear? How can we pollute the land and think that this doesn’t violate our responsibilities as stewards? How can we let any person lack for health care or food because they have violated one of our precepts of entitlement? How dare we? Indeed.

Just sayin’.

A few weeks ago, I made mention of Ardi (Ardipithecus ramidus), a female hominid who was found in the early 90’s in Ethiopia.

Almost immediately, I received links to various creationist sites poo pooing the whole thing and claiming that scientists were having to scramble to rethink everything in light of her. It was like, to them, some major evolutionary catastrophe.

Such happens when people who know very little start trying to find information to support a conclusion they very much want to be the case. It makes for horrid science.

So it was with excitement, that the Contrarian and I sat down to actually watch the Discovery special on her discovery and the immense scientific inquiry that has followed.

Ardi was located in Ethiopia, in the general area where Lucy had been found and where many hominid types have been discovered. Her age was and is pegged at 4.4 million years ago.

The process is argon dating. Argon, like uranium has a known half life. (We are pretty good at this stuff since we build bombs that work based in part on the half life of uranium.) The surrounding rock is melted down, in minute quantities, and the argon gas emitted, is measured, giving very accurate time readings. So Ardi is 4.4 (+ or – 50,000 ) years old.

Her skeleton, what was found at least, was in quite poor shape. It took more than three years just to clean the pieces, which were numerous. Through two different processes, one conducted in Tokyo and the other in California, the skull was reconstructed. Both models were near identical, giving efficacy to the correctness of the model.

Of course, as is always the case today, experts from many far flung disciplines are brought to bear on different aspects of the find, and testing begins. As far as I can tell, no adverse or anomalous results have occurred which contradict other conclusions.

Scientists are jumping for glee at the find as you might expect, for Ardi presents them with something utterly unexpected. She is far older than Lucy, yet she doesn’t exhibit much in the way of chimpanzee structure as they expected. As one expedition leader suggested, “you can’t predict what you could have no way of knowing might exist.”

Ardi does what all good discoveries do, it sets the scientific community awhirl in excitement. Things have come up that were not expected, and an explosion of new ideas and testing is being called for.

What scientists know at this point is this: That Ardi was bipedal. Contrary to the idiot sites (all starting from the premise that evolution is bogus, then searching for anything they can manipulate unscientifically to support their already arrived at conclusion and buffalo their rather dull and uneducated readers), this seems well established through normal examination of pelvic bones.

Yet, her feet are decidedly ape-like, having an extremely large toe suitable for wrapping around small limbs. Her hands are human, and there are not the proper bones one would expect in a knuckle walking ape. Her teeth are also human, the canine having shrunk to the size appropriate to humanoid types.

Since she is so old, and is far back but still before the common ancestor of both apes and humans, the question raging at this point is what evolutionary good was served by bipedalism, which brought this characteristic to the fore so very early on in the development of what would become homo sapiens?

Scientists historically have favored a savanna approach. As the graces overcame the forests as the climate changed, scavenging for food often required “standing” up to look around above the grasses. Now we know that no such savanna existed then. Ardi, by examination of the flora of her time, lived in woods.

Present theories are that Ardi and her kind were bipedal because it allowed use of the hands to carry food longer distances. This freed up females to raise more children ( supported by the  record of increase), while males foraged farther afield for food and could return with sufficient quantities for the wife and kids. (Of course it was also safer that the females and young need not expose themselves to predators on the ground.)

Today, scientists are defining hominids from other ape like creatures simply on the basis of bipedalism. It was the big change, unheard of otherwise in the animal kingdom.

Where Ardi belongs on the family tree, make take a long time to decide. As those of us who dabble in this field know, the tree has been altered more than once over the last couple of hundred years. New discoveries are like that. They often upset the apple cart, and send scientists off to rethink everything again. No doubt, this will not be the last time; it certainly is not the first.

When I look at Ardi, and what specialists who create the “faces” of these creatures, show me of her life, I am given pause. I can imagine God watching little Ardi and her group, laughing with glee at their triumphs and play. One wonders if God stopped and smiled, wondering whether this creature would one day grow to a point where it would look upward and wonder “why, who, what?” God must have been excited to contemplate that moment in time when “first contact” would be made.

The wonder of evolution, the result of God’s (I believe) declaring by his Word, the start of creation, speak eloquently to us. We can imagine in all it’s glory the intricate melding of physical laws, the swirling interplay of matter and law that resulted over time in increasingly complex and more sentient creatures. We have before us today the result of that fine work. Amazing and making us tremble with awe. That through such a process, so elegant and surreal, tens of thousands of fly species could be created, different in minute aspects, of no consequence to anyone, but simply the way things play out in nature. Such a cornucopia of life explodes forth from the simple words, “let there be. . . ” And it was, and God said it was good.

See this site for general information and further links to actual science sites! Although I am aware of the limitations of Wikipedia, the information contained in this article is substantially the same as presented in the Discovery special.

Too many irons in the fire. I don’t know what that means for fire and iron, but it means for me that I’m getting stretched too thin today.

After a couple of “sick” days, I’m back working furiously, and catching up in increments.

I’m off to the food pantry to day for service. I’ve done the e-mails, phone calls, and reading for EFM. I’m closing in on making some good dents in the mountain of work that I have carefully worked out in my list of to do’s. My list of daily accomplishments has become evocative of child’s play, marking down that I “ate breakfast” as an accomplishment. Might be if I were bulimic, which I am not.

It does serve of course to make me feel like I’m getting actually work done, and I am. But my time is run down today, and I’m off to cook some food for the Contrarian’s dinner and then get on the road down to the pantry. I’m at least feeling a bit better than I have things back in some kind of orderly fashion, and tasks are being accomplished.

Oh and a happy congratulations to all who won books in the book giveaway. The winners have been notified and their books will be on their way soon. Thanks to everyone for participating. I hope we can offer more in the future.

So Phew! Enjoy your day, and I will mine, and enjoy these cuties!

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Whenever I come upon an aphorism, I sigh, because it’s just more work. I know, you ask, why so? Well, it’s that they are so darned seductive, they sound so right, so good, and it’s so easy to just adopt them and use them as fact.

But alas, they are used for just that very purpose. They are conniving in their attempt to lull you into complacency, begging you to search no deeper for truth.

And that’s what you must avoid. That is unless you are of the lazy mind variety. And of course you aren’t like that.

This is not a blog I care to write about, since mother-daughter relationships are certainly not my speciality nor my interest at all. I have my peace with life as it is, and seek no angst driven conversation the point of which is to make me feel “okay.”

It is what it is.

Okay, more background. I came to me last night as we were watching Brothers and Sisters. Nora, mother of the brood (Sally Fields) is trying to convince her son that she in fact, has full confidence in his ability to get through law school. She says some things, and then erupts. “God I sounded just like my mother. I said I would NEVER be like my mother, and I guess I am.”

She is wretched, and her son assures her she is nothing like Grandma. I realized that we are never neutral when it comes to that question. Either as we are thrilled to be compared to our mothers or fathers (sex to sex), or we are appalled at the mere suggestion. Nobody says, “I’m okay if I turn out like Dad, and okay if I don’t.”

That seems because we have clear opinions on the relative parenting skills of our parents and want to emulate or do the exact opposite.

There seems to be an aphorism that any person you don’t like tends to mirror things about yourself you don’t like. Nobody likes to hear that. And everybody worries and talks about channeling the person sometimes. “I just heard Mother come right from my own lips!”

I’m not sure the aphorism is true. Psychologists probably say it is. It may mean that people you don’t admire are people who show you characteristics you particularly look to avoid in your own behavior and personality. Perhaps you “fear” acting like them, but I’m not sure that you actually end up being like them.

I saw good mother-daughter relationships as I grew up. So I can tell when one is good. Unlike marriage. In most all of my adult life I never saw a marriage I considered “good.” Tolerable? Perhaps, but not good. Of course another aphorism is that you can never “judge another marriage from the outside,” and this one is quite likely true. Nobody knows but the two people what it is really like.

But you can tell one you don’t like. It of course, doesn’t mean the marriage is bad, only that it would be bad for you to have one like it. The parties themselves may be quite happy with each other.

Some folks think that having a bad or non-existent relationship with a parent is sad or miserable. I can say, from my vantage, that it is not. It is fact. Period. I don’t actually attribute a lot of fault. Parenting is not a given. It is learned behavior and if one hasn’t had a good teacher, one undoubtedly won’t do a good job, except by chance, and real commitment. Most people take being parents pretty much for granted, unfortunately.

And frankly, that’s  not the worst position to take, since most children are fairly resilient and most can withstand general dysfunction. Plenty of kids survive rather rough parenting in terms of physical abuse. I didn’t have that, and would categorize my family as simply adept at getting their way by manipulating other’s emotions.

This is never a good idea, but adults are fair game. Children don’t have the experience to defend themselves, and end up with self-esteem problems at minimum.

Psychologists of course claim that the worst thing to do is to disengage. They think this fails to resolve issues. Recently on GMA, Peg Streep talked about this and her book Mean Mothers. She too made a permanent break with her mother.

No doubt those who have excellent relationships with parents are aghast at such choices. They must find such a decision tragic from their point of view. From the point of view of the person who ends such a “relationship,” there is little to do except to put a dying horse out of it’s misery.

For there is seldom, I think, reason to think that such relations can be salvaged. They can never be “good” in any real sense. They can only become “accommodating” in which each side has had the chance to air it’s anger and resentment. Some of the worst things may change, but it will forever more be a forced kind of thing.

I’d rather have the “good” relationship rather than a limping along type. Same for marriage. Most marriages are “okay” but I’d have rather done without than settled for that. I was lucky in that one. I found a prize among men. My marriage is by most standards excellent, though we of the excellent category know how much effort is involved in keeping it so.

I just can’t seem to raise the necessary energy to “keeping it so” to a relationship, that in the end, will only be tolerable.

Just sayin’.

I find irony delicious. When an idea comes together around a bible story, an atheist blog post and a scientific idea, you know you are in a rarefied realm and God is whispering in your ear. Write, he says. And so I am.

In preparing for our lectionary discussion tomorrow at church, I was confronted with an old story in Mark, that of the sons Zebedee, and their quest to be at Jesus’ right and left sides in his “glory.”

As the story proceeds, we find that the brothers, unmindful that Jesus has just told them of his coming passion and sacrifice, are more concerned about their relative power in the new kingdom that Jesus will inaugurate.

One of the lessons we learn from this periscope, is that we, as followers of Jesus, like the disciples, often times find our true intent in gaining recognition and power for ourselves. We are reminded through a meditation of this story, to remember to check ourselves regularly to determine our true motivation in “serving” our Lord. Are we like James and John, more concerned with our “recognition” in church ministries, or in others knowing of our sacrifices?

It came to me that a thorough immersion in Jesus’ teaching on this subject is helpful in the discussion of climate change.  In a post entitled, What Happened to Global Warming?, the Atheist Ethicist makes a damning statement against those who continue to oppose the truth of this scientific conclusion.

This is not a game. The fate of whole cities from Shanghai to Cairo to Amsterdam to London to Miami to New Orleans is at stake. Given these facts, the morally responsible person sweats over the possibility that he could be wrong. The morally irresponsible, reckless, contemptible individual blurts out what he wants to believe and selectively cherry-picks evidence that conforms to that belief.

However, the real moral crime is a society that tolerates this type of intellectual recklessness. All of the drunk drivers, rapists, and murderers combined threaten a lot less destruction than global warming deniers, and yet the latter are tolerated.

And I’m hard pressed to find him wrong. Global warming is being warned of by scientists around the world. Are their disputes about all kinds of peripheral issues? Of course there are, but there is agreement on the general proposition that it’s occurring and frankly at a rate much faster than scientists anticipated. Our window of opportunity is growing closed.

The results, when it occurs will be devastating, both to our country and all others. Millions will be displaced, perhaps billions in the end. Life will be harsh, food growing areas will suffer, and we will have to adjust. Most of us who are older adults now won’t see things as bad as they will get. We will get off easy by comparison to our children’s children.

Yet, a segment of our population continues for various reasons to keep it’s head in the sand. Some represent and support business, who is after profit and power today, and simply won’t care about tomorrow. But some are supposedly serious Christians, and some of them too simply deny.

They interpret their bible in their own way, suggesting that God will not allow the earth to fall into such ruin, merely because he said he would never destroy the earth again after the flood. But he said nothing about saving us from our own folly. And indeed, it can be easily argued that God has provided the “fix” in the guise of scientists around the world who have told us what we must do to avert this catastrophe.

What these biblicists need to do is examine their motives. Do you truly believe that God doesn’t expect us to help ourselves out of crisis by using our own brains? Are you willing to risk the very lives of your grandchildren on your personal interpretation or that of some self-styled preacher?

Are you really masking a desire that this version of yours be true, and then seeking information to confirm your conclusion? That is always available, but is by no means conclusive of truth. There are always shysters out there willing to make a buck at your expense if you will buy their books and go to their seminars.

It seems clear that a certain segment of our uneducated but opinionated citizenry tend to first decide what they want to be the truth and then seek support for their position. This is a crazy way of doing business as most rational people know. But to the crazy biblicists, this is the norm. They do everything this way as it relates to the bible. They decide what they want, then find in the bible support for that. It’s easy enough to do, since the bible in total will support virtually every position one can think of, if you look hard enough. Such is why we have some 40,000 different Christian denominations.

Is it perhaps that some people are always looking for ways not to be taxed? Even for the common good? Does it make this selfishness just a tad more palatable when you can feel comfortable that the Lord is on your side? Is He? Or is it your wishful thinking? Are you afraid of big government and knee jerk react against anything that smacks of bigger government? Does interpreting the bible in this way help to support your fear?

Jesus tells us we must question our motives. That is why he asked the brothers if they had a clue what they were indeed asking for. After all, being at his right and left side in his glory involved hanging on the cross in place of the two thieves. Surely they did not mean that. No Jesus was hoping they would realize that they were still defining the world in worldly terms, not heavenly ones.

If you claim to be a climate change denier ask yourself: Am I truly convinced, willing to put my future children’s life at risk for what I believe? Am I  willing tot risk my 2% of scientists who agree with me against the 98% who don’t because I’m really afraid of something else? It’s time to come clean both with us and yourself. You are holding our future hostage with your self-serving arrogance. And it has to stop.

I think illness is a perfect time to be studying Job. After all, God makes it clear that Job’s complaints are small potatoes to God’s concerns about running a universe.

Thus, I feel right at home with Job, whining about my miseries. Hey, God, can you abracadabra this away? I mean it won’t take long, and I know you are busy, but really I am a big promoter of yours. A little help here?

Actually, it’s not all that bad, more irritation than true misery, but hey, that doesn’t make the story so good, so a little embellishment seemed appropriate.

I’m not about to die, if that’s what you think based on the cartoon. I’m just in a bitchy kind of mood, which is common when my body acts like a silly fool. I have important things to do, and dang, they ain’t gettin’ done as it were.

Things started off badly with the computer scare on Sunday, when we couldn’t seem to get sufficient speed out of old Bessie to open a website. Not good. That turned out to be a wiring issue, one the Contrarian was able to solve (blessed be his name!) on Monday. I started having digestive “issues” on Tuesday. They seemed better on Wednesday, but that was a hellish day. I left at 2:30, went shopping, hit a meeting at CEC, left at 5:15, went to Grace and spent three hours in EFM, arriving home near 9:30, exhausted, and chilled.

It only got worse. By morning, I was all cramped up, the “pinging” stomach pains gone, but with every move, I thought I was carrying a bucket of biting piranha in my tummy. Mostly it just hurt in the lower right quadrant, and so I got visions of appendectomies in my future. But the pain was limited to moving around, so I figured that wasn’t it.

I slept a good deal, ate very little, trying to let my offended tummy and intestines heal, and pouted a lot. I then thought of swine flu, since I had a lot of chills over the day and evening. No coughing or fever, no diarrhea or upchucking, so I figured probably not that either.

I delight in those times of misery, of diagnosing all sorts of ugly scenarios. Mostly I’m wrong, and I’m much better today, if still struggling with muscle spasms the result of the stretching and bloating of my aggravated digestive system. I bend over and suddenly my stomach seizes up and I moan trying to pretzel my body in a backward stretch, hoping to pull the muscle out of its seizure of how tightly it can squeeze and how loudly I can mewl in anger and hurt.

Such is freakin’ life. As I said, I’m better today. Not best in case you missed that. Just better. Tomorrow we can hope for best. And it’s back to my regular diet of home baked bread and no boxes and no baked store crap for me. No ice cream unless I make it, ya know, the usual pain in the backside is back!

Along the way, in the cloud of misery I fancied myself in yesterday, I heard or saw, or witnessed in some fashion these following ideas:

A child in Colorado supposedly unmoored his dad’s spaceship balloon which was chased across the skies for some time, finally coming down, sans boy.  Now we thought the boy might have fallen, being only about 6 or so. Thank goodness, no, he was safely hidden in the attic. Now we wonder, was it all a set up for his attention craving parents? 

I’m not sure what all that matters unless you realize that given the 24-hour news we get, we all know of this adventure from almost start to finish. We share in it and breathe a collective sigh of relief when said child is found okay. We have participated in a drama the likes of which was not possible a few decades ago. I’m not sure how that effects our mentality as humans in the group experience. I’ll have to ponder it now that my mind is not distracted with painfully acting noodles of digestive rope strung through my insides.

I play games online a lot when I’m not feeling well. It distracts me. So I was on facebook, since games are plentiful there. Lots of hearts to send and receive, flowers to water and fertilize, mafia to kill and weapons to acquire. There are also lots of “polls.”

I saw a couple yesterday, and feel obligated somehow to respond. Facebook, is, I suspect filled with the usual suspects, conservatives, and not very bright people, along with those of more education, intelligence and should I say liberalism, as if to juxtapose those two phrases as opposites. I really don’t mean to of course.

One was on the death penalty, and sad to say nearly 80% claimed it was a good thing. No doubt a lot of them Christians, which always seems odd to me. Shouldn’t we leave such things to God?

The other was on creationism versus evolution. Here 60% believe in creationism. Now that may seem insane, and is to a degree. Plenty of college profs bemoan how difficult it is to unprogram young minds to do real science when they have grown up with such bizarre notions that the earth is but some 6,000+ years old.

I’m convinced that voluntary polling suggests very little of anything in the first place. And second, I’d be willing to wager than a huge chunk of the “creationists” thing they are favoring God versus no God in their answer. They don’t realize that the two are compatible. But then they don’t know much of anything about evolution, less about geology, and astronomy, and all the other disciplines that all structure on the same plane of time. A cursory look at the comments suggests as much. It’s pretty much akin to those who deny climate change, and then “prove” it by telling you that they had the worst winter ever last year. It denotes a childish and completely uninformed understanding of the subject.

Well, gosh I do run on. I’m truly sorry to have spent so much time wandering around my head again. I’ll be back up to rational conversation soon I hope.

This is pretty much apropos of nothing, but I couldn’t resist this remark this morning as being both funny and soooooo very true.

“The idea of Rush Limbaugh congratulating himself for ’spawning’ Glenn Beck, is a little like being proud of spreading syphilis.” Keith Olbermann

Isn’t that a picture that you want to erase from your mind?

As I sat and contemplated another day of attacks and innuendo, the common fodder of the daily news fix, I had to remind myself, that truthfully, nothing much has ever  changed on the American political scene.

Watching another installment of the Ken Burn’s masterpiece on our national parks certainly can help to remind one that politics has always been a dirty business in which only the sufficiently hardened need apply.

Those who have seen the series know that part of the impetus for the national park system was the horrific mess that Niagara Falls became when left to  a “free market economy.” It became a side show of entrepreneurs shilling whatever they thought might fly, making the experience of the Falls, one of avoiding being taken to the cleaners by unsavory businessmen.

The truth is, that Yosemite and Yellowstone both survived attempts to rape them of their resources by ever greedy corporate boards. Had it not been for the federal government, congressman like Senator Lacey of Iowa, naturalist John Muir, and President Theodore Roosevelt, much of our national beauty would have been lost.

The desire to log, provide feathers for women’s hats, mine promising ore filled mountains, and other corporate enterprises were pushing hard for access to sites all over the US and barely were beaten back, oft times by fancy interpretations of existing executive power.

So that fact that our climate is filled with lies and hate today is, on par, business as usual. I refer to the latest health care industry threat: defeat this bill or be prepared to pay much higher premiums for health care, because we intend to raise prices if you don’t.

It seems that the dumping of a so-called “independent” analysis of the Baucus bill on health care conveniently, just moments before the vote in the Finance committee, was much ado about nothing. Of course, most of us, never for a moment, thought the conclusions were fair. After all the health care insurance industry paid for the study, and we have seen historically that business paid for “analysis” somehow always mysteriously favors their position. (Remember all those “smoking is not addictive” reports the tobacco industry submitted over the years.)

It seems the darling insurance agents forgot, oops, I mean struck from the report, the cost reducing measures in the bill in their calculations. Yes, Price Waterhouse, we understand is complaining that the report issued by the corporate pigs was not the one they wrote, but in fact had been scrubbed of information and numbers that the industry didn’t find helpful to their dog and pony show, namely that passage of reform will bring higher premiums to those who presently carry insurance.

That sounds about right I’d say. All the charities and sweet commercials aside, it does seem that most businesses are modeled on the short term, get as much as you can as fast as you can, for tomorrow we die. Ethics seems a dirty word to most. Morality is a word they have no truck with at all.

Which all leads logically to this point. Where was the press when the gay-rights march went on over the weekend? You probably missed it, since almost nobody even mentioned it, even though it was by some estimates as big as the tea-bagger march. No Fox Noise reports barely at all. I wonder why? I hear the Obama administration has strictly denied Foxy any sit downs at all. Fox is thoroughly outed as a shill for the neo-con and religious right sections of the Rethug party. It seems appropriate to “just say no.”

Then on the other hand, you get crazy stuff like this coming across the screen. Science it seems struggles these days to make headway against the rising craziness of creationism. Bill Nye the science guy, ran into this bit of nonsense at a talk he gave in Waco, Texas (yeah I know, Waco, what can you expect?)

He cited Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights–the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.” Nye stated that the lesser light in the aforementioned quote was not technically a light, but a reflector, as in it reflects the sun’s light. The God-fearing folks of Waco were furious. One woman shouted, “We believe in God,” and proceeded to usher out her three children.

Now, last time I checked, the moon doesn’t generate light. I mean does anybody believe that it does? 

Good news that some won’t see as good. Abortions are down all around the world. So is contraceptive use. Any correlation? Experts seem to believe so. This angers some of the religious right who oppose contraception, but hopefully they still applaud the reduction in unwanted and terminated pregnancies.

Just a few things I ran into today. Now I’m off to meetings and more meetings!

This is our third book giveaway, and the last for the time being. We again thank the Hatchette Group for giving us this opportunity.

Rebecca St. James is a well-known singer, especially in the Christian music industry. She is also a prolific writer, this being one of her ten books that she has edited or written.

Loved: Stories of Forgiveness is a delightful book. Each major chapter leads off with a story about a well-known figure from the bible. In it’s pages you will hear the embellished stories of Rahab, Gomer, Leah, Eve and others. Each will focus on the saving forgiveness each story elicits.

What then follows are testimonials, short stories of real people and the difficulties they have faced in life. In each case, ultimately from the dregs of near ruin, lives have been saved, strengthened, and put back on the clear path to God. Each woman finds at the lowest point, that grace and forgiveness necessary to make the course correction essential to a life of hope and true happiness.

Each story outlines the drugs, alcohol, broken relationships, medical disasters, and other common issues that attack and bring low so many people in their lives. Nothing you have done or have done to you can be so bad that God cannot draw you up into the sunshine again.

As such, this book is an inspiration for anyone going through serious crises in their lives. It points our and shows clearly that you are not alone, that others have suffered your suffering and worse and have come out of it better and stronger.

The book is structured in a way that allows you to read each story and then spend the day with it, and then reading the next on the following day. Each area, identity, addictions, family problems, relationships, and so on has seven stories after the biblical one. Thus you can live with particular problems and the inspiration forthcoming for a week.

But truly, all the stories have meaning and offer empathetic help, for it is the suffering that is always central, and it is the saving grace of God that is always in the end, the turning around point.

If you are facing such a crisis in your own life, then surely you can find solace here. If you know of someone who is in deep despair because of bad choices and/or simple accident, then this book may be offered as a help.

Nothing takes the place of course of professional care and advice, but sometimes just seeing so clearly that others have suffered your same affliction or faulty choice making is a help and gives one courage to take the necessary steps to seek that professional assistance.

If you would like a copy of Loved,  leave a comment to this post, with your email address. I’ll contact the winners in a week and notify the publisher of your addresses for mailing purposes. Remember that only US and Canadian citizens are eligible for this giveaway.

(As a disclaimer: The publisher has sent me a copy of this book free of charge. I am under no obligation in my review or otherwise to speak for the company. Their only instructions to me were that five books were available to be given away and that winners were limited to Canada and the US. No other controls were issued to me as to the method of this giveaway. My remarks about the book itself are my own.)

I ran into an article the other day, that seemed to support my contention that morality is independent of faith in God. As you might expect, I was rather impressed with the logic expressed by the writer on the subject.

I have long been told by, especially conservative religious types, that religion, specifically Christianity, is responsible for moral behavior in humanity. In this, I have always contended that they are quite wrong. I have long concluded, through both reading and study, and personal observation, that morality is part of the human condition, and is subject to evolution like many other things.

Frans de Waal is of the same opinion, and shows how animals can be shown to exhibit traits that are akin to real caring and empathy for others, and moreover, they can make choices to indicate their preference for cooperation and sharing rather than ego driven personal selfishness.

He claims that certain people who are creationists object to evolution for this very reason. They cannot accept, and believe somehow that religion will fail, if morality is not tied to God. Their conclusion is that man cannot evolve morality, but it is a precept that goes hand and hand with God.

I think that thinking rather shallow, and certainly not in accordance with the evidence. I refer of course to the growing fields of evolutionary brain study, and ethics. Taking, as countless other scientific disciplines now do, the evolutionary model as their start, those who study the brain and human ethical systems, are more and more convinced that morality is a natural outgrowth of man’s evolving life.

Yesterday’s liturgy consisted of readings in Job and in Mark. They both raise interesting possibilities. The issue in Job is whether humans will worship a God only if there is a reward or if Job will continue to follow Yahweh even when he is visited by unimaginably wretched calamities. Does Job change his tune when his life devolves from happy and fulfilled to miserable and seeming abandonment?

Similarly, in Mark, Jesus tells the young wealthy man to go and sell everything and give to the poor and follow him. In return he will gain everything in life and eternal life in death. Pretty neat rewards wouldn’t you say?

Evolutionary ethicists and others are rather concerned about a reward/punishment system that is the basis for being “good.” And well they should be. I suspect there are few people indeed who would claim that fear of God’s retribution is the only reason for their “moral” behavior.

There is every good reason to conclude that morality is independent of God belief. Certainly humans were well along in cooperating and helping each other, sacrificing purely personal motives for the sake of the group, well before anyone suggested a “being” might be in control of the universe.

I’ve discussed the issue of evolution and the dilemma of the creationist with a lot of people, and from many different angles. Some scientists simply won’t engage, finding the discussion wasteful. The creationist has everything at stake in being right, and thus cannot engage logically with the issue. I too subscribe to this conclusion, but sadly continue to find myself drawn into argument. The argument always ends the same however, since the average creationist would rather listen to a self-styled “expert” (read no credentials), rather than one who is actually trained in the area–namely evolutionary biology.

I had, honestly, never seen the issue of morality as being tied to this issue. But de Waal certainly makes a good case. However,  there are those who, at this point in time at least, still place little credibility on the entire field of evolutionary ethics or brain development.

For me, I am suspicious of any religious conclusion that starts from the proposition that we are coerced into behaving well. I find nothing free in being presented with two alternatives, one good, the other bad. That’s not choice, that’s simply following the logic of doing the least harm to self.

And moreover, as most of us know, realizing that morality is a natural development in evolutionary growth, has nothing to do with reducing God to some smaller sphere of influence. God is still God and has always been God. Releasing ourselves from outdated and I would argue harmful conclusions about God are both mature and useful in the journey to discover who God really is.

Let me say that I think that the correct reading of the Mark story I mentioned above, is not that Jesus promised reward for following him. In fact, desiring the reward would be counterproductive in the end. One must, to do it right, be selfless in our service to others. And I think the Christian theology is quite clear on this point. But what is clear theologically, is not always how it comes across to Joe Coffee at the plant. It comes across as coercive and thus not free.

The non-believer is right to sit back with arms crossed and demand explanation. Our complicated philosophical ruminations don’t ring true in Average America. It seems to me that it is better to acknowledge the truth:

We are moral because we have evolved to that, to whatever degree that we can claim it today. We share that with the higher forms at least of the animal kingdom. Religion serves as a mighty re-enforcement and that is a good thing. But our non-believing brethren deserve more than our claim that only in faith can we be moral actors in the world.

Just sayin’.

Most of you know that speed is an issue for me and computing, so nothing drives me nuttier than wasting time following a link that turns out to have little or nothing to do with the proposition stated by the post. This is true of bloggers, but also people on Facebook and forums.

It leaves me in the end with one of two conclusions. Either the user is being intentionally deceptive, hoping I’ll be impressed with his back up but not checking it out, or she is not bright enough to see that the linked material doesn’t stand for the proposition announced. Either way, I’m not putting much confidence on the poster again.

It occurred me to this had to do with blogging rules 101, and that some of these basic rules of road are correct, and some not so much. Given that we who blog do so for a reason, it seemed worthwhile to state some conclusions about blogging I’ve come to.

The point about links is clear. Your links need to be relevant, and should reasonably say what you infer they mean. Nothing turns off people quicker I doubt or makes then question your smarts or integrity, than when links are not reasonably referable to the post. Links moreover should lead regularly to independent and helpful additional information.

It seems to be a rule that you should have lots of links. This shows that you have spent a fair amount of time researching and thus that your conclusions are sound? I guess it means that. But I’m not convinced, and furthermore, I think lots of folks don’t have the time to chase the links unless they offer some real interest independent of the post. So I’m not overly concerned with having a lot.

It seems reasonable that it’s still a good idea that your blog has a single subject. I violate that as you know. And no doubt I pay the price to a degree. But I think some have found that the very fact that I tackle two no-no’s in public discourse, politics and religion, is enticing to them. When I ask whether people prefer more of one than the other, I usually get the same answer: keep doing what I’m doing.

But as a general rule, you tap into your demographic much better if you limit your blog to fairly single subjects. This is true whether you are TPM or Betty’s Home Front. I tried the newspaper model, and while reasonable successful, I found it so very time consuming as to be prohibitive. I’m basically down to the double issue with a recipe or such thrown in, along with the “life in the meadow” humor pieces.

One of the greatest rewards of blogging for me has been the discovery of my voice. I have always understood that I was a good technical writer. Read that as being able to write a good text book, and pretty much anything nonfiction. I have no ability to write fiction in the law haul. What was a total shock to me was that I had a talent for humor.

Voice, learning what you can do, takes time. I’m just now getting comfortable with the wit and dry humor that I can conger up pretty easily. It’s a gift, and it’s my personal quirk. Randal, whom I mention often, can write circles around me. On a good day, I could emulate him, and no one would get confused as to who wrote what. I slowly have developed my own weird goofy prose that seems to strike the funny bone of a loyal following.

The advice is to take time, explore different modes of writing, and it will settle into something recognizable to you in time. Like fine wine, and a marinated steak, patience is required.

Much is made of the rule that your posts should be around 500 words 700 at max. Mine exceed that nearly every day. I’m nearly 1000 on most days. I can’t help it. No doubt some skim my posts some days, or perhaps do as I do, save a very few bloggers for full reading, and skim the rest. Do the best you can do to keep it succinct, but I doubt anyone will stop reading you if they like what you write. Tomes however are ill advised and should be broken into “parts.”

Be as honest as you dare. If you start out trying not to offend anyone, you will bore everyone. Even when people loudly disagree, stick to your principles, or change them if you are obviously wrong. If you don’t have the strength of your convictions, then you are nothing more than the pundit for hire. Passion, real passion that is, attracts. Sincerity is compelling. Fake tears are not.

Don’t be afraid to be edgy. Most of the mainstream isn’t and that’s why the fringe is read. People know the basics. They want to be challenged. They may agree or not, and you have no hold on the truth, but your pushing of the envelope is what engenders real thought, and rethinking. That is the point after all, that we don’t accept the world as fate dictated. We challenge, probe, pick at, the accepted norms and offer that to open minds. We all get changed or reinforced, but we cease being stuck in sameness.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. There are close to 6 billion people on the planet. Even a readership of 1000 a day, is hardly a mandate that you’re brilliant. Even the insanest person you know can find somebody who is equally insane, and usually more than one.  You will in the end find yourself wrong on many things. This is fine. We are all learning, and we all make mistakes. Be careful that you don’t start being a guru. Do you really want that responsibility?

Mostly have fun, and recreate yourself as needed or as desired. Today’s “knitting blog” becomes tomorrow’s environmental call to action blog. We are all in process. Never feel compelled to write or not. Take breaks when you need to recharge. Read as much as you can to be informed. Don’t get bogged down with strange quirky people with oddball worldviews that want to argue with you. (My hard lesson to learn.) And did I say have fun?

We have a system in our household. At 7 am, the Contrarian comes to wake me up. “Babe, babe, ….babe, it’s 7. . . .” he croons. Today, it was punctuated by a second statement. “Are you ready to be shocked?”

“mmmwhhhat?” pushing the cobwebs from my mind.

“Obama won the Nobel prize.”

“For what?”

“For peace.”

“Where?”

“I dunno, I guess for everywhere.”

My immediate reaction was, “Oh, lordy, Hannity and the Fox nuts must be preparing the samurai swords for hari kari.” (before you start, I know hari kari is incorrect. But I’m NOT looking up the correct term.)

That was more than enough incentive to bounce out of the bed and get the TV on. And the Contrarian quickly began arguing quite convincingly that this was not a “day for man work” given that such “perfect days seldom come along” when we can sit and watch “Fox implode all day.”

I’m normally not into “breaking news” since, by the time you get here, you already know it anyhow. I’m not a 24 hour news service. I generally wait until there is a back story that rises up and suggests a look. But this is just too delicious you know to put off.

I mean, good grief through all those long eight years of misery, at least we could count on the fact that the international community was in solidarity with us in our agony of mediocrity. They hated the dumbed down cowboy as much as we did, for both his utter incompetence and his arrogant swaggering of American power to the detriment of all.

How must the rabid nearly incoherent right feel, as once again the Antichrist has managed to come up smelling like roses? I mean can you imagine the number of newspapers that are being shredded by snarling maws of insane hatred? Coming on the heels of their utter glee that Chicago was turned down for the Olympics, it is like alcohol on the wound, no? They must be squealing again about how the world is a cult of Obama.

Taking the wind from their sails, they now find themselves once again forced to mute up or find excuses, or yes, even to rant at the unfairness of it all. Why cannot EVERYONE get it that this man is the evil genie sent by Satan to destroy the world? Why is it only they, this small remnant of not so well educated, not so well paid, workers who get it? I can imagine, just barely their  agony.

No, I’m not one to gloat, no I am not. I take no pleasure in telling you these things. No I don’t. I mean I felt bad when Tommy Delay had to quit Dancing with the Stars due to stress fractures. I can understand his misery, I’ve felt misery from the stress he’s delivered me for years. I can empathize. I surely can.

Foxy missed not a beat, turning the announcement on its head. This is not praise or recognition for Obama and thus for the US, but actually another cheap shot at Bush. They, (the world), hated him you know. WITH GOOD REASON FOX! If Fox could ever get the reality of things. Bush was a gnat, a nasty creature who irritated a good portion of the globe, but he is gone, and I doubt many are spending must time and effort in finding ways to “pay him back.” History will do that quite nicely, thank you.

Rethugs are no doubt huddled together trying to figure out a strategy to deal with this. More impetus to the health care reform which has, it seems, finally turned a corner of sorts. The polling is now decidedly on the side of public options and Republican “positives” are in single digits these days.

They rather clearly thought it bad form to express their happiness at the Olympic thing. Plenty of it got out, and they looked, well, unpatriotic. How to remain patriotic and still cast this as somehow no big deal? I saw only Orrin Hatch and he suggested that somehow Obama must gather from this honor that he “just doesn’t represent the left, but all the people.” I don’t know how he arrived at this bizarre conclusion but well, it was an effort not to be seen as sour.

Meanwhile behind the closed doors, and  in the trailer parks and world wrestling  ring sides, the usual pouting and cursing will continue. The man can give a good speech, but he’s still stupid as, well, I can’t conceive what, since they think Sarah is a intellectual ideal. There will be renewed calls for “gathering our guns and marching” and “getting our country back.” For some, there will be the confounding reality that shocking as it seems, it seems the world is not aware that he’s BLACK! Like Colbert, they “don’t see color.” And there will be more claims of socialism, from the milder nuts, and fascism and Nazism from those that more than likely could spell neither.

What we have here folks is a honor directed to America, represented by our President. It is a recognition that we are trying to repair the damage we have done. That we are fully in the world, not above it. That we recognize our responsibilities and want to bring our considerable power and history to bear for good. For peace and conversation, for empathy, sympathy, compassion, and justice. That is what Barack H. Obama symbolizes today. In his unfailing offers of a handshake and a listening ear, Obama has signaled that America is one among equals, not the bully on the block.

It’s a good day!

If you had seen me this morning, you might have questioned my, shall we say, collection of marbles? My brains in other words. My capacity to logically move from place A to B without swerving off to F. Got that?

I’ve been assaulted this week with certain adjectival and nounish bullets that would put a less well put together psyche down. Not to worry, I have a strong constitution (no not the “we the people” stuff), and an army of disparate fellow travelers who encourage me, and reassure me regularly. I am not crazy, and I’ve said that before. It’s time you took that as a given.

I must say, it does dawn on me often, that I should question my own sanity. Others certainly do. I mean I don’t ask for much, just a reasonable logical explanation of things. This I often do not get, and thus the worry that all is not so well upstairs in the attic of my flashing neurons.

Reading the following, I seriously questioned once again whether I was legally able to fulfill the duties of citizen of planet Earth. It seems that one Billy O’Reilly, Foxy blatherer extraordinaire, suggests that Ms. Bachmann’s detractors are just jealous of her good looks. Yes indeed, Billy Bob Boob, that’s the reason all right. We are jealous cuz she is lovely to be behold. Now that takes care of the lesbians, what about the rest of us straight women? Huh?

Sorry Uncle Bill, but I still find her intellectually bankrupt and morally absurd, or intellectually absurd and morally bankrupt.

Which brings up the whole ugly issue of intelligence. I was recently, or my brains were, compared to a piss-ant. Imagine that? It was also suggested that it was a modern marvel that I could walk and breathe at the same time. This from the paternalistic/defender husband of a woman who told me that I hated Jesus since I couldn’t believe in her wacko notions of creationism.

 I can of course consider the source, and move from this personal assault on intelligence, noting that for some uneducated persons, “common sense” is vastly more important and doesn’t require any actual work. It comes naturally, like the wisdom just there for the asking from God.  No matter that just perhaps, God might have thought books could be a way to acquire wisdom. No we shouldn’t go there. One remembers the man who drowned, waving off all boats because he trusted that “God would save him.”

Some months ago, I started a forum thread about the environment. The environmental catastrophe we are flirting with is something like evolutionary theory, so well known worldwide as to not really be in question any more. Even the Bushites, playing it down of course, grudgingly admitted that it appeared true.

Anyway, my question was, if you claimed there was no environmental climate change, did you base this on scripture or something else. To a person, all claimed that their doubts stemmed from a general conservatism which somehow translates into suspicions about science and scientists in general. Why they don’t have the same suspicions about oil companies and other polluters is not known. In no case did anyone claim there was a spiritual reason.

But now we have one. I have recently seen a FaceBook entry which cited the bible, specifically Genesis for the proposition that we need do nothing regarding the environment. The verses are Gen. 8:22.

As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall not cease.”

From this we are to deduce (if we so self-interpret) that the earth will remain until such time as God in his good pleasure decides otherwise. Well, I think that’s a pretty big stretch, and even if so, it makes no claims as to the condition the earth will be in “as long as the earth endures.” Frankly, I find it as meaningless as the claims by some Catholics that “go forth and multiply and be fruitful” is God’s direction against contraception. But no matter.

It’s pretty flimsy evidence upon which to bargain the life of one’s children and their children and theirs on. At least as I see it.

Speaking of which, I saw another set of links to UTube, you know that academic land of excellence, wherein parents were warned not to let their kids get flu shots this year. Given that people are DYING from swine flu, and that the target groups are the very young (who can’t decide for themselves) and pregnant women, who can, I’d say it’s pretty irresponsible to invite people to make up their minds based on UTube.

Particularly so, when the link has to do with mercury being in some flu shots. Actually the truth of the matter is that some shots are stabilized with thimerosal. I know about this since I am allergic to it. This is easily solved by asking for the vaccine without the preservative. Simple. It is not wrong to raise some concern, but surely the way to do that is to direct people to their physicians? rather than UTube?

But then again, some folks have no sense of “sourcing.”  Bad sources make for much laughter. But in the hands of the wrong trusting people, they can lead to tragedy. Beware giving advice when you have zero in the credential field.

So it just goes to show you, that if you are crazy enough, you ensure that I am sure that I am not. I don’t need no stinkin’ shrink for that!

Just sayin’.