God has a sense of humor. Me? Well...

When you take the time to get to know God, you get to know His sense of humor.  I have felt it in my own life, and have seen it in His Word.  And today, I would like to share a slightly irreverent (and hopefully not blasphemous) take on ten off the top of my head funny bits in the Bible.  I hope everyone in Heaven and on earth at least gets a smile out of this.


10- This is how Wile E Coyote got started (2 Samuel 11)

I had a bit of trepidation doing this one, seeing's as it didn't play out very well in the end, as both a warrior and a baby lost their lives.  But if you look at it from a secular standpoint, David came up with a string of bad ideas in the whole Bathsheba "affair".  First, he spots her taking a bath on the roof, which I am assured was 'common practice' of the day.  Makes me think, did all the day's golddiggers take baths where the king might spot them?  Might explain some of Solomon's 300 wives and 700 concubines.  Long story short, she gets pregnant and David has a royal problem.  So he brings the hubby Uriah back from the war for a 'sitrep', then tells him to go relax at home (where Bathsheba no doubt waits by the 'indoor bathtub').  And David has a gift sent after him, which the KJV for some arcane reason translates into ' a mess of meat'.  But Uriah refuses to go in- he clings to his honor and misses anvil #1.  So night #2, David gets Uriah drunk, because we all know how men are after a few drinks (see "Lot and his daughters" in Genesis 19), but again Uriah refuses to eat the plate of seed under the big rock.  So finally, David sends him back to the war with a "kill me" sign taped to his back.  But as if the Road Runner's ghost came up behind him, Nathan the prophet tells a story that gets David to let the cat out of the bag himself.  No word on whether David went, "D'oh!" went Nathan said, Gotcha!"


9- "You can't make this stuff up, Festus" (Acts 26)

So here's Paul before an audience of Procurator Porcius Festus and Tetrarch Herod Agrippa, after sitting in a cell for 2 years because the last guy (Felix, who with Festus are the only 2 guys in the Bible whose names start with an 'F', ironically enough for the grade they're gonna get) didn't want to touch someone else's religious hot-button issue.  Paul of course relates his "origin story"- how he went from persecutor to evangelist, including the miraculous 'kick against the goads' lightshow.  Now Agrippa was from the 'hood, so he knew a lot of the story, and what he didn't fascinated him.  Festus, however, just got off the bus from Rome, where gods mostly interact with men before they get the promotion from emperor, so he holds his tongue until Paul hits the part about a God who lets Himself get crucified so he could rise from the dead, and then stands up and shouts, "PAUL!  You have lost your fricking mind!  You need to lay off the books and come back to earth before the nice boys in the white shirts take you to the padded room!"

Agrippa, though, sang a verse of "Almost Persuaded", and vouched that Paul was indeed fully functional.  After which, they both said, "Thank Zeus he appealed to Caesar and ain't our problem anymore."


8- " Aw, Mom..." (John 2)

So Mary and Jesus are in charge of this wedding reception (guessing it's one of his half-sisters), and SOMEbody either short-changed the wine vendor or invited the boozers in each family, because the adult refreshments ran out a bit early.  So Mary goes to Jesus with this, "Can't you do something about this?" look.  Jesus replied, "Woman, my time has not yet come."  But Mary, much like the traditional Jewish mom responding to "Ma, I'm stuffed" with another scoop of kugel, merely looks at the bartender and says, "Do whatever He tells you."  Probably with a shove on Jesus's shoulders, Mary then leaves the stage for her Son to do His first 'stand-up'.  After the miraculous transformation from water to wine, the chief steward is called and one sip later tells the bridegroom, "Nice job, saving the best for last."  I can't help seeing the steward as Larry from Bewitched...

"You son of a gun!"

7- "A cow, am I???" (Judges 14)

Samson, for all his God-given might, had bad taste in women, and this story is no different.  He sees a Philistine chick and asks Mom and Dad to set them up (again, how they did things back then).  Along the way, they get jumped by a lion, and Samson grabs his jaws and rips him in two.  Later, they come back through and Samson notices the bees have built a honeycomb in its skull (definitely not how they did things back then).  So when they kicked off the seven day party called the marriage feast, the Philistines assigned him 30 'companions' (read "guards") to keep him out of trouble- which of course Samson was more than willing to get into.  So he gave them a 'riddle' to figure out, and if they solved it before the consummation of things, Samson would get them all new suits.  His riddle: "Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet." (And thank you to the ESV for getting it to rhyme!)

The reference was to the lion, something that nobody else knew about (Mom and Pop hadn't seen the honeycomb).  So with time running out, the "companions" conned the bride to be into smoozing for the answer, something that ALWAYS worked with our hero.  And after a couple of days of "no huggie, no kissie", Samson let her in on it, she told them, and they answered the riddle.  His reply was classic:  "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle."

Thus he got in the side shot on them, and the next verse tells us the Spirit gave him the best plan to pay off the bet- he just went to the next town, killed 30 OTHER Philistines, and gave the 'companions' their hand-me-downs.

Needless to say, the rest of the party was "rained out."

6- What to give 3 guys that have everything? Tents  (Matthew 17)

If Jesus ever had a facepalm moment, this had to be it.  He takes His 3 best students up on a mountain away from everyone, and opens up His True Glory to them.  While there, He has a quick word or two with the biggest stars of the Biblical galaxy that weren't divine- Moses and Elijah.  This is a once in forever moment, and frankly, I'd like to say I would have had a million questions for the duo... but probably would have put my camera on "reduce glare" mode and asked for autographs.

The 2,000 years ago equivalent, apparently, was slapping together a trio of tents, so they could break out the folding chairs and have a real sit down.  In the midst of Peter trying to come up with this completely unnecessary plan, God gets on the loudspeaker and says, "Hey, schlemiel!  This is My Beloved Son.  LISTEN TO HIM!"  Needless to say, they hit the ground and held on for dear life.

After Moses and Elijah said their goodbyes, Jesus came over and said, "You can get up now.  And, er, forget the tents."

So this whole thing ended up a lot bigger than I thought it would.  Tune in next week, if I haven't been obliterated by then, for the second half of this post.  BTW, I'm going to go ahead and write part two now, so if you hear about "Lightning strikes Ft Wayne man," you might want to skip it when it comes up....

Time Machine co-ordinates VICXIV593101166

Welcome to a Time Machine where the opener certainly led me on a merry chase.  Not today- October 11th, 1966- but yesterday, the 10th, Robert Moog applied for the ONLY patent he ever sought for a component of what was to become the Moog Synthesizer.  To celebrate, I tried to find out what the first chart hit with a MS on it was.  The answer- Dick Hyman and the Electric Ecclectics with The Minotaur, which came in the Hot 100 on Cashbox the week of my 7th birthday and flamed out at #34 in the second week of July 1969.  And it took me a good while to find that out, and I got it because some guy got cheezed because a buddy made fun of him for NOT knowing the answer, so he kicked over rocks until he found it.

Dick Hyman, the first of today's many winners

So in honor of that search, I have a first time ever guessing game for you.  This week, among the whopping 95 stations that provided us our 25 Panel contestants, were not one, but TWO stations from my hometown of Fort Wayne- WOWO and WGL!  Now, I have taken their top tens, and figured up the Panel votes each song on their individual charts got.  So here's the question to you- which station's top ten got more Panel Votes?  In the meantime, we have two M10 debuts, a 6D which leads to yet another of my, "What were the biggest hits HE played on" lists, and four Fabulous POTMs!  Strike up the band and let's go!


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First off is a song so new, I have to give you a link to go listen to it on!  They are on the M10 for the third time, and they are Quiet Hollers at #10 with Loup (Hide It Away)! UPDATE:  If that don't work, I forgot I could embed this off their Bandcamp page, so try this:








Okay, that seemed to work- enjoy!

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All right, guys, you're up agin it this week!

Paul:  Right-o!  I might say though, we did a bit of that Moog thing way back on Abbey Road...

John:  Yes, I played the machine on a few tracks...

Yep, and before you, the Monkees tried it out on Pisces Aquarius Capricorn And Jones LTD, but neither of you released tracks with the Moog on them.

P:  Oy, the Monkees... aren't they that lot you had Davy Jones play me on that fake Beatles fiasco of yours?

The very same.

George:  Lads, this is all well and good, but we do have a list that's fairly substantial...

P:  Very good, then, Ringo, how about you start us off?

Ringo:  Of course... the one-vote wonders start off with The Troggs and With A Girl Like You, which was doing quite well back home, but here it peaked at #41 a couple weeks back.
The Left Banke were at #22 with Walk Away Renee...
Sonny and Cher were at #46 with Little Man...
J: That he was...
R: And Herman's Hermits were at #44 with Dandy.  John?

J: Very well, you left me a few of the one-vote lot.  Next is a song called Next Time You See Me, a non-charting tune for The Robbs, who hold the record for most charting hits in the bubbling under section without ever hitting the Hot 100...
P: Obviously, there won't be a next time we see them...
j: Ha, that was quite droll! Then, we have our good mate Georgie Fame with his version of Sunny, while here the Bobby Hebb version was dropping at #41.  Back home, Georgie was at #15 while Mr Hebb was at #12.
James and Bobby Purify were at #65 with I'm Your Puppet...
And some lot called the Critters were at #14 with Mr Dieingly Sad.  George?

G: You've left me with one one-vote wonder, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels with their Devil With a Blue Dress medley at #63.
The two vote songs start with our very own Yellow Submarine at #11...
J:  And that, Richard, is why we rarely let you sing...
R:  Oy, I've had songs I sung in the last TWO Panels, John!
G: Then comes Los Bravos with Black Is Black at #3...
Jimmy Ruffin's What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted at #19... oh, here, Paul!

P:  Thank you, my good man.  Carla Thomas with B-A-B-Y is next at #35...
Sandy Posey was Born A Woman at #12, and thank heaven for that!
And that brings us to the three vote songs, with the Surfaris and Wipeout at #9...
R:  See, we should cover that one!
J: You would think that, being the drummer and all...
P: The Supremes and You Can't Hurry Love are at #4...
And the Stones with Have You Seen Your Mother, Etc, Etc, at #40.  Ringo, that leaves you with one three vote and one four vote!

R: And that means I get the first two Final choices!
J: You should go ahead and do three, and we will divvy up the other three.
R: You're being awfully pleasant today, John...
P: He doesn't want any of us telling Cynthia about that ghastly Chinese girl he's seeing...
J: OY!  I don't even meet her for another whole month!
G: This time stuff does get a tad confusing.
R: Anyway, thank you, John.  The three- vote song is... hey, you figured wrong, all that's left is the one four vote song!
J: You try to read this bloke's notes!  At least he could have them typed...

Hey, I do enough typing here...

R: Sooo...  the four vote song is the Count Five and Psychotic Reaction at #13... and now, your choices for the winner.

Johnny Rivers, Poor Side Of Town at #21...
Tommy Roe, Hooray For Hazel at #38...
The Association, Cherish, at #1... Fellows?

J: I have Reach Out (I'll Be There) by the Four Tops at #2...
G: Mine is 96 Tears, ? and the Mysterians at #5...
P: And I finish it our with those Monkees fellows and Last Train To Clarksville at #6!

Nice job, guys! So take your pick here, while you listen to the soothing sounds of Foster The People debuting at #8 this week...








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So our 6D victim was Neil Diamond's Cherry Cherry at #7 without a Panel vote.  Among the musicians on this song (which easily could have been yet another Ellie Greenwich story) was session guitarist Al Gorgoni.  Al was on a lot of hits, and I compiled what I thought was the ten biggest hits he played on- until I went back to the story on Cherry Cherry and saw I left one out, so here are the 11 biggest hits Al Gorgoni played on:

11- The Left Banke, Pretty Ballerina (#15)
10- Rock And Roll Lullabye, BJ Thomas (#15)
9- Janis Ian, Society's Child (#14)
8- Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison (#10)
7- Of course, Cherry Cherry (#6)
6- The Left Banke, Walk Away Renee (#5)
5- At Seventeen, Janis Ian (#3)
4- Bob Dylan,  Like A Rolling Stone (#2)
3- The Sounds Of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel (#1 2 weeks)
2- My Boyfriend's Back, the Angels (#1 3 weeks)

And the top song he played on...

The Monkees and their 7-week #1, I'm A Believer!!!!

P:  Again with that lot!  You'd think they were the guests...

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And now, a moment with our attorney, Horace Bellbottom...

In this past week, some algorithm on Facebook has apparently decided we are a spam blog.  I assure you we are not.  We have been given green light checks for phishing on every major site evaluator.  However, I must point out that one of the "definitions of spam" that Facebook admits to using is  "Impersonate or pretend to be a business, organization, public figure, or private individual".  In those regards, it is our declaration that none of the various personages on the Time Machine posts, unless directly quoted, are anything but fabrications for the amusement of readers.  The sole exception to this is our author, and even his reality is questionable in some areas.  Any pretense at being the real or unreal people we represent is strictly unintentional.  You really should know better.


Thanks, Horace!  Now, on with the show...

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So what for the Ft Wayne lists?  Here we go...

WOWO

1- 96 Tears
2- Cherish
3- Black Is Black
4- Cherry Cherry
5- Last Train To Clarksville
6- Psychotic Reaction
7- I've Got You Under My Skin, The Four Seasons
8- Hooray For Hazel
9- Reach Out (I'll Be There)
10- Beauty Is Only Skin Deep, the Temptations

Total votes- 62

WGL

1- Mr Dieingly Sad
2- Cherish
3- 96 Tears
4- Reach Out (I'll Be There)
5- Wipeout
6- Black Is Black
7- Last Train To Clarksville
8- I've Got You Under My Skin
9- See See Rider, the Animals
10- Hooray For Hazel

Total votes- 62

IT WAS A TIE, LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Ye quicke stat packe...

Big mover, the Vogues and Please Mr Sun, 21 spots from 97-76.

Debuts this week- Have You Seen Your Mother etc etc at 40
Devil With A Blue Dress Medley at 63
and Peter and Gordon's Lady Godiva at #80.

Ramsey Lewis's version of Stevie Wonder's Everything is All Right Uptight, simply titled Up Tight, is our 66 in 66...

And the UK's official #1 was Jim Reeves with Distant Drums, which was a posthumous #1 country and hit #45 pop.

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The remaining M10...

Saint Asonia falls from 3 to 9 in week #7 with The Hunted.
M83 moves up two to #7 with the early Genesis-like instrumental Feelings.
Barbara Lewis moves from 10 to 6 with her 1963 song Straighten Up Your Heart.
For King And Country and Dolly Parton climb a notch to 5 with God Only Knows.
1F holds at 4 for White Reaper.
Silversun Pickups climb a pair to #3 with Neon Wound.
Slipping off the top perch, the Explorer's Club and The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore.
Making the new #1...

Geowulf and Lonely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And your Panel race?

Johnny Rivers and Tommy Roe got 5.2% each...

The Monkees got 6.3%...

The Four Tops got 9.5%...

96 Tears got 16.8 %...


But the winner, with 21 % of the vote...

The Association and Cherish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next time, 1967!  Be there, unless you're spam....

Pictures on my spammy blog

Just because the Zook wants TAW off of Facebook, doesn't mean y'all can't still come over!  And here for your enjoyment are some walk pics!

You'd have had a hard time finding me where I took these two!

And if you had... OMG!  What did you do that for?

The Duck Pond, with no ducks... and not a lot of pond...

I had to take this one and then zoom in- had no idea what I saw swimming all the way over there...

I was standing here, just enjoying the silence and solitude- until I heard a crashing through the brush on my left... a squirrel tore ass out from behind me as if the Devil hisself was on his butt, disappearing into the other brush on my right.  Scared the poop outta me, figuratively only.

Saw this guy... he'll be back in a sec...

The most remote spot Scrappy and I ever managed- we named it the End of the Earth...

Oh, Mr Heron had a buddy...

They swung around and ended up one at a time in an old dead tree

"Hey, enough with the foliage, focus on ME!"

Wednesday Bible Study: A deep dig into Proverbs VI

Just when I thought the study of "Fear of Jehovah" was done, God showed me one last lesson- in a verse He hid from me when I gathered the others.  But first let me set this up.

If you follow the Sunday Message, a week or so ago I mentioned a Saturday morning that involved a message from Tony Evans, "The year king Uzziah died".  I got a lot out of that message, and one of those things I got was this:  You get closer to God in your "years that king Uzziah died."  This has most definitely been for me one of those years.  And God has definitely used it to teach me so much, Praise to His Name.  And another involved our progression we've been learning.  In Isaiah's "year that king Uzziah died," he had a vision of himself in heaven, of God exalted.  Let's look at what happened.

Isa 6:1  In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 
Isa 6:2  Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 
Isa 6:3  And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" 
Isa 6:4  And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 
Isa 6:5  And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" 
Isa 6:6  Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 
Isa 6:7  And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." 

For Isaiah, the progression from humility to fear of the Lord- which we learned in Proverbs 15:33-  "The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor"-  was nearly instantaneous.  This in mind, let's look at 2 versions of the "missing verse" I 'found'.

First, in the ESV, where I first saw it:

Pro 22:4  The reward for humility and fear of the LORD is riches and honor and life. 

Which is all well and good, but if you remember last time, you know that sometimes fill-in words mess up the meaning.  So here, that first 'and'.  Now, the more accurate LITV:

Pro 22:4  The reward of humility is the fear of Jehovah, riches, and honor, and life. 

In the original language, fear of Jehovah is a REWARD for humility!  Along with the others.

Pastor Denny Miller just finished a long series on the Beatitudes as a progression- you have to learn each IN TURN to progress to the next.  And of course, the first is, "Blessed are they who are poor in spirit"- who know they have nothing before God.  Then comes, "Blessed are they who are meek and humble."  It starts with the realization of your nothingness (in your person) compared to God; that creates your humility-ability.  And almost instantaneously with that, as we see in Isaiah, is fear of the Lord.  You can't be truly in fear of the Lord if you have that "lofty" image of yourself.

Let's look, as I have been, at the example of Job.  Now Job had humility before God, certainly most of his complaints center on how low he is, that he has no means to challenge God.  But he had skipped a step, because instead of seeing himself as having nothing before God, he thought he had a case WITH God.  If you read the whole of God's lecture at Job, you see that God first points out His station as Creator and Maintainer of the universe; Job answers that he CAN answer nothing to that- bringing him back to that first step.  Then, as I explained that recent Sunday post, God showed vividly to Job just HOW powerful he was- with nothingness and humility at last PROPERLY aligned, Job was ready to truly understand the fear of the Lord.  That he got the message comes in his final response to God:

Job 42:1  And Job answered Jehovah and said: 

Job 42:2  I know that You can do all, and no purpose is withheld from You. 

Job 42:3  Who is this hiding counsel without knowledge? So I declared, but did not understand things too wonderful for me; yea, I did not know. 

Job 42:4  I pray, Listen, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You will make me know. 

Job 42:5  I have heard of You by hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen You; 

Job 42:6  Therefore, I despise myself, and I have repented on dust and ashes. 

Now, look at how Job got the other things with this verse:

Honor:  His 'friends' had made God royally upset; they had to come TO JOB to have Job get them forgiven.

Riches:  Everything Job lost, he got back- he was rich before, now he was twice blessed.

Life:  Did you miss this?  Job 42:16  After this Job lived a hundred and forty years. And he saw his sons, and his grandsons, even four generations. 

Job 42:17  And Job died, being old and full of days. 

Job is the very picture of this verse.  Unlike Job, we may not get these things on this earth.  But as you recall, part of our progression is the change and growth of your character, which should lead to a greater success on earth than you would have had otherwise, so it's not all heavenly, either.

I keep telling you all how much reading Proverbs every day has helped me.  If you still wonder at this, think on this stat:  This is our sixth week of doing Proverbs, and though we have jumped around a bit, we have essentially only made it to Chapter one, verse 7.  You should try this yourselves.

Martin World News

Time for another fun round of Martin World News- not fake, not overtly political, and certainly not a program you'd go out of your way to be featured on!  And I'm going to put a one-story-per-newssite limit today, so here we go!


ITEM 1:  "Well, I'll admit it was a bit off topic, but...

Headline on FoxNews:  Drexel pays $189K to cover professor's strip-club spending: Feds


"Drexel University was ordered to pay $189,062 after learning a former professor had spent grant money on strippers and iTunes purchases over the course of a decade, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia said."  The professor in question, one Dr. Chikaodinaka D. Nwankpa, had been funding these "field trips" on Federal grants earmarked for Naval tech research (electrical and computer engineering teacher) for the LAST TEN YEARS before getting snagged by an internal audit.

A little digging on my part found this interesting tidbit on the frisky prof still up on Drexel's website:

OIP would like to congratulate Prof. Nwankpa on his 2013 IEEE Fellowship. He was selected for this prestigious honor for contributions to real-time computation in power system analysis The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the world's largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. 

At least he could compute singles and $20s in real time.  After his, er, exposure, he promptly paid the U. about $54K back (just $135,000 to go) and resigned.  Where did he get his education, you ask?  Proud graduate of St Petersburg State in Russia (no kidding), and Illinois Institute of Technology, where he got a PhD in not touching during lap dances.


ITEM 2:  Now here's an idea from Europe we need to try...

Headline from BBC:  Italy reduces size of parliament 'to save €1bn in a decade'

Italy's parliament has voted to cut the number of representatives in both houses by more than a third.
The lower house approved a law to reduce the number of MPs from 630 to 400 and senators from 315 to 200. The reform was a manifesto promise of the populist Five Star Movement, the main party in Italy's governing coalition.  They say it will streamline parliament and save hundreds of millions of euros in salaries and expenses.


If we did that to the same proportion, we'd shrink the House from 435 members to 276 and the Senate from 50 to 32.  That would be an annual savings in salary alone of $30,798,000 per year...  With perks, I bet it would beat the billion Euro mark.  I didn't work out all the details, because they are that many and that staggering, but according to the Motley Fool site, my plan would also save $7 million plus just in free parking at Reagan International over ten years.


ITEM 3: It must be that new math

Headline from Xinhua: Swedish high school students high on cocaine during school hours: report



Police in Sweden's second largest city of Gothenburg say they are finding high school students high on cocaine and amphetamines during school hours, Swedish news SVT reported on Tuesday.
After a year of specially-directed police actions carried out at high schools across the city, police have found students under the influence of strong narcotics such as amphetamine, cocaine and the prescription opioid tramadol.  "That this cocktail of drugs is found in secondary schools is a huge failure for Sweden," Robin Nilsson, head of the Gothenburg police unit specializing in drug trafficking, told SVT.

So why do the kids take drugs at school?  The high? The adventure? The big FU to authority?  No...


According to SVT, students often name stress as a factor, saying that they feel pressured to get good grades in school.

Excuse me, but what part of doing lines at school helps good grades?  Which of the affects of tramadol help lift that GPA, the relief of moderate to severe pain, the dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, and sleep problems, or the addictive nature? 


Item 4: Talking from both sides of his textbook

Headline from Moscow Times:  Putin Says It’s ‘Cynical’ to Blame Stalin for World War II

Blaming Stalin for starting World War II is “the height of cynicism,” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said amid renewed discussion over the Soviet Union’s role in the conflict.
“To say that Stalin unleashed the war is the height of cynicism,” Putin said at an international conference in southern Russia on Thursday.  “It’s as if the Soviet Union attacked Germany at 4 a.m. on June 22 [1941] and not vice versa,” he told the Valdai Discussion Club.

No, it's as if Stalin gave Hitler the big okee-dokeee to do whatever he wanted in Poland, France, hell, all the rest of Europe, as long as he got his slice of Polska Kielbasa. 

Tensions came to a head last month when Russia’s Foreign Ministry defended the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, tweeting that “hundreds of thousands of lives were saved” because of it.

Saved for a year and 9 months, that is, as most of the lives that were "saved" by Molotov-Ribbentrop were extinguished in Operation Barbarossa and thereafter.  Even Putin used to feel this way.  What changed?  Glad you asked...

Putin defended the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, calling it Moscow’s response to being isolated and having its peace efforts snubbed by Western nations. While serving as prime minister in 2009, however, he denounced it as “collusion to solve one’s problems at others’ expense.”


ITEM 5: And now for something different

I usually save a big-bopper stupid story for the end, but this time we're going to get one that is just too cool for me to leave out.

Headline from the Times of Israel:  Arab plumbers refuse to charge client after learning she’s a Holocaust survivor

Simon and Salim Matari, who are brothers, were recently called to the home of Rosa Meir to fix a major leak, according to Channel 12.  “When we got there, we saw there was a large blast of water and we started fixing it,” said Simon. “At some stage, while working, my brother Salim started to talk to Rosa about her life. She told us she’s 95, a Holocaust survivor, and that she has a daughter.

After the work was completed, he removed his notepad to bill her, and wrote: “Holocaust survivor, may you have health until 120 [years old], from Matari Simon and Matari Salim,” adding that the cost of the service was “0 shekels.”

Rosa was brought to tears, the report said.

“The brothers really surprised me,” she said. “It was so moving and uplifting, and I thanked them a lot.”

Simon Matari said they did it “from their hearts.”


He also left her a parting gift: If she should need anything else, he said, they would happily come fix it for free.


Salute to you, Simon and Salim.  May you both have health till 120 years old.

And now, catching up the pictures...

Yep, it's been building for a few days now- no, not that, the pictures I want to share with y'all!  So without further doo-doo, here we go!

Last Tuesday we got some rain, so it was that last Wednesday featured water in the canal!  That woke up hibernating bugs in the once-dried mud- and that meant duck buffet!

They were going absolutely nuts!  Even the swamp five were there....

Friday I took some "cheer up Laurie" pics after a bit of a rough night...

Hi, Big Guy!

That's one thirsty tree...

Black squirrel

Mandatory my butt, I'm going straight!

Just in case there was any doubt as to the idiots tearing apart our woods for the expansion of frisbee golf...

The future of our peaceful woods- loudmouth jocks, dragging bottles they will empty and leave in the woods and a radio turned up high enough to drown them out when normally talking, and shouting whenever they come close to a target...

Saturday, we get some Peanut, Pistachio, and Lily....

"Cheese!"  Serious, as soon as he saw the camera...

Sunday message: Rules and mercy.

So I was reading yet again the story in Leviticus 10 where Aaron's sons apparently (from the context) got drunk before offering the wrong incense to God, and were struck down.  A succession of things confusing to us then followed.  First, Moses told Aaron and his remaining sons that they were not allowed to publicly grieve, lest it be seen by the congregation that they were grieved against God's judgment and they, too, be struck down.  Then, Moses, being hyper-paranoid lest the Aaron family commit some other violation of the spanking-new and fairly complicated laws of sacrifice, noticed that the goat from the people's sin offering wasn't in evidence.  According to the law of the Sin Offering, this particular sacrifice was to be offered with rejoicing and eaten by the priestly family.

Eventually, Moses found the goat burned at the altar.  And he came unglued at Aaron in a bit of panic:

Lev 10:16  Now Moses diligently inquired about the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it was burned up! And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the surviving sons of Aaron, saying, 
Lev 10:17  "Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD? 
Lev 10:18  Behold, its blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary. You certainly ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded." 

The questioning comes with Aaron's response- and Moses' reaction TO it.

Lev 10:19  And Aaron said to Moses, "Behold, today they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and yet such things as these have happened to me! If I had eaten the sin offering today, would the LORD have approved?" 

Lev 10:20  And when Moses heard that, he approved. 

The questioning among the commentators is thus: Why would the Lord not have approved?  In our modern eyes, we look at it and say, "Because they were grieving, it wouldn't have been a joyous occasion, thus how could they eat with rejoicing?"  The other argument goes, "Under the judgment they had already faced, there remained a possibility that they were not HOLY enough, and God might have struck them down for eating the holy food."  I'd like to set aside the case itself, and look at the arguments here, and how they apply to us.

First argument:  God would not approve me rejoicing half-heartedly because I am in mourning.  BZZZT.  Read again Paul in 1 Thessalonians:

1Th 5:16  Rejoice always, 

1Th 5:17  pray without ceasing, 

1Th 5:18  give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

God gets that we will mourn in this life.  Else, why would He promise to one day "dry every tear"? (Rev. 21:4)  But He also has two great ways to get out of it:  To rejoice, because of the future promise; and to give thanks for all He has given.  Lesson here: grief is not an excuse for lack of service; indeed, service through thanksgiving is the cure for grief.

Second argument: Looking at my life, I wasn't good enough to do the job.  BZZT again.  Just two chapters back, they had been taken through all the sacrifices that MADE them holy.  Was something they hadn't done, or might have done, going to change that?  I suppose you could make the argument that the other sons had been drinking WITH Nadab and Abihu, but got off because they hadn't offered the sacrifice.  But if that was the case, Moses would have done more than ban them from drinking, he would have told them to offer another Sin Offering for themselves before being re-dedicated.

Thing is, there are a lot of us that use this same excuse for not serving- we're not holy enough.  But in Aaron's time the sacrifice, and in our times Christ, has taken care of that.  The sin offering back then covered unintentional sins, as well as those of conscious mind.  So too has the Cross of Christ.

So why then did Aaron make the excuse, and why did Moses accept it?  In trying to figure this out, I did some background on how the Jews saw Aaron, and I found a curious story about the Golden Calf incident in the Jews' Sanhedrin texts.  The debate was on compromise, and one rabbi had addressed the 'why' of Aaron agreeing to make the calf.  According to their story, they start with the fact that Exodus says that when Moses went to the mountain, Aaron AND HUR were put in charge.  That was the last mention of Hur, and they believed that this is because the people killed Hur for resisting their demands.  Aaron then reasoned:

Aaron said to himself: If I do not listen to them now, they will do to me as they did to Hur, and the verse: “Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?” (Lamentations 2:20), will be fulfilled through me, and they will never have a remedy for such a sin. It is better for them to worship the calf, as it is possible they will have a remedy through repentance. Nevertheless, according to Rabbi Tanḥum bar Ḥanilai, whoever praises Aaron for this compromise is provoking God.

Circular reasoning at best, since Aaron would be referencing a "prophecy" that wouldn't be written for several HUNDRED years.  But the point of Aaron's character is important:  Where Moses was the strict, by the book guy, Aaron was the one that tempered the judgments with MERCY.  And they point out (yet again from a prophecy that wouldn't be made until several centuries after the incidents) that God values mercy over sacrifice.

And I believe that this was Moses' point in accepting the reasoning of Aaron.  That at this level of mourning, this close to the time in question, God would show more mercy to them in accepting a sacrifice they COULD be 100% behind (the burning) rather than the by-the-books eating of a "joyous meal" that they had to choke down.  They did it from a perspective of HONORING God, rather than shaming Him, and thus Moses approved in this one instance.  This fits the progression of humility-fear of the Lord- wisdom and understanding we have developed the last few Wednesdays.

I watch as 'religious' facebook friends debate what kind of music should be played at church, which way the priest should be facing, if you should raise your hands in worship or fold them in prayer.  If they would just REALLY look at this one passage, they would see perhaps that all of that MEANS NOTHING compared to the heart being right with God.