These were taken the day we saw an otter cross California Road at the swamp. The swamp water was looking a bit... solidified... and he decided to find something a bit less stagnant.
On top of a dead raccoon, Scrappy found a dead fish.
Geese actually got threatening with a couple of approaching ducks. A-holes...
Scrappy spent some time rousting the froggies at the alumni pond. Missed this guy, though...
Big hawk coming in for a landing.
The little bluebird of happiness was watching over us. Saw a cedar waxwing as we crossed the hedgerow, too.
A pigeon in an ostrich costume, by Laurie
Anything's camo out here, eh, Mr. Squirrel?
And the Indigo Bunting takes a stroll
Saturday was the "Insane Inflated 5K" at the Plex. There were inflated "obstacles" on ALL of the dozen and a half soccer fields...
"Alright, it's hot and there are people everywhere... let's go home and nap!"
My dog... the only living being that ever slept in odder positions is my daughter.
Last week I talked about how sin, by separating us from God's will, can cause the Spirit within us to go silent. This week, I just heard a sermon that dovetailed with this, as far as the why of it. David Jeremiah explained how the Holy Spirit- the Paraclete- is by name and nature our encourager. Thus it makes sense that when sin causes the Spirit indwelling you to shut up for a time (until you are again willing to listen), it would be natural that you might find yourself... depressed, as I was. Short sermon, eh?
Not really. Because just like there are more layers to depression, and sometimes it is the physiological as well as (or instead of) the spiritual, the other end of things also has a few additional layers.
What I am trying to get at is, do we look to the Holy Spirit for our encouragement? Do we see that as His purpose?
John 14, Jesus speaking: 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,[f] to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be[g] in you.
The word here called helper is also translated comforter, advocate, or counselor. It is the word parakletos, which means, "to come alongside". Do you see the Spirit as any of those things, or just as a divine "addendum" to the conscience? Do you come to Him when you need help, whether in praying (I do that a lot) or in some physical need (not so much)? Do you turn to Him to bring you out of a depression, or even just to help you read the evening news without going nuts? Do you turn to Him as an advocate, taking advantage of Romans 8:
In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself intercedes with groans too deep for words, and the one who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, for the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to God's will. Rom 8:26-27
Do you come to Him for advice, or just expect Him to line things up so that you can't help but do the right thing? How do you approach the Spirit, and does it make a difference?
Consider this: the effect, as I said, on my life of the Spirit's silence was a depression and a discouragement with the world. But is it only a personal thing. Regard this passage:
2 Thessalonians 2: 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness[b] is revealed, the son of destruction,[c] 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
"He who now restrains it." Look at the world. We who are Christians can agree that things are falling apart so much more rapidly in our lifetimes. Now, follow me on a logic path.
First, if we allow sin to cloud the Spirit in us, depression and discouragement follow.
Second, the apocalypse will follow once the Spirit is removed from earth.
Then is the current falling away, the "rebellion", due to a LOT of us silencing the Spirit?
Do we as a Christian body silence the Spirit by our attitude to Him, draining the Church of encouragement, causing a partial "moving out of the way" of the Spirit? I don't know. But I've rarely seen a "it's just me" problem that actually ended with "just me". Perhaps we all need to examine whether we are allowing the Spirit to be all He wants to be for us.
So I wake up from a nap about 3PM yesterday when KC calls and asks if I want to go get a brew. I said sure, and off we went. He asks where I wanted to go. I said, "If you ask me, we'll prolly end up at some old man's bar." We decided to hit O'Reillys. It's a cool place built into the wall of our downtown baseball stadium, and we've been there before.
Opening item to happen there: KC is an Indians fan and the first thing we see on TV is the 2 players he complains about the most- Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher- got sent, with $10 million to pay their next years' salary, to Atlanta for a dude hitting .235 playing a position they don't need. Nothing says love like...
So then we played some pool. amazingly splitting a pair of games (I only play good pool between a beer-and-a-half and 3 beers, and I won during the 3rd one.) Then KC played against a couple of guys that worked there, which was fun because the one guy was a Tigers fan (whom KC hates) and the other was a New England Patriots fan (whom everybody hates). After that, we left and I suggested we go get some burgers. We decided on Wrigley Field Bar and Grill.
We scored a table up front with a dude that KC knows from everywhere called "the Silver Bullet" (he has long silver-gray hair). They were doing Karaoke and a giveaway from the local ESPN radio station, and locally known celebrity and drunk driver Billy Elvis was hosting. I ordered a couple cheeseburgers (which the waitress wrote down as one) and KC got what appeared to be a cheese toastie, and ordered us a bucket of Coors Light. As the night wore on, I got 1) the old feel to go a-singing again, 2) the second cheeseburger which I told the waitress not to worry about and KC told her to go fetch, and 3) the urge for a duck fart shot. By the time the second cheeseburger was gone, I had my second of three duck farts, my name was in for a song, and KC was waxing philosophical on Big Papi and whoo-hooing songs he'd never heard before.
Yer basic duck fart: Kaluha, Bailey's and Crown Royal.
The bar was also featuring a group of bikers from Honor Flight, and at one point Billy Elvis pointed to the biggest of them, a guy called Sumo, and said he was about to sing, "I Am Woman, hear me roar." Sumo laughed and said he didn't know the song.
One of the nice things about Karaokeing in this town, there's a certain down's syndrome gentleman who likes to sing. He basically turns the songs into spoken word, but everyone sings along and he has a great time. He did Sherry, and I learned that KC can actually do the falsetto notes quite well.
As the third and final duck fart arrived, the guy just before me came up. His song was Lou Rawls' You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine. Before he started, he told me I was too young to remember disco. Imagine that! Then he got singing, and let me tell you, he nailed it as no song has been nailed before! It was tremendous- and then I had to follow him.
I did the Guess Who's No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature, and despite starting a bit early, I did okay. KC thought it was great and got everybody clapping along. We left a little afterwards, and one of the singers asked me if I was going to sing again, so either I did pretty good or he was making his exit plans.
So after evading a fellow intoxicant begging cigarettes, we took off for what I thought was home. Instead, KC decided to stop at his place to grab some more beers to bring over (which sat untouched in two different locations of my place until I got up this morning). As with many a bachelor pad, it was a bit disheveled, but the thing that amused me were the plethora of empty Pepsi cans I spotted. One on his couch fold out, one on the floor about five feet in front of it. One in his bedroom, another one along the wall, and the one I decided to take a picture of, resting on his window sill.
It would be the dark object seemingly being used to hold everything up.
We arrived back at my place around 10:30, when KC turned on MLB.TV and proceeded to fall asleep to the Pirates beating the Dodgers. I got a little snack and checked FB, and soon found the game was over and KC was watching the "Thanks for watching" screen.
"Hey, dude, the games over, change to another game."
"All in good time..." he muttered, and after about five more minutes he changed the channel. It was the last I heard from him. Laurie was home by then, and she says that after I went to bed, she finally woke him up when she accidentally dropped a plastic mug from its shelf, and he meandered on home.
Today is August 7th, 1973, one day after Stevie Wonder was put into a coma when his cousin rear-ended a flatbed truck and the end of it came through the windshield and struck him in the head. For more details, you can check Stevie's fan site here. He would spend four days in a coma and two weeks in the hospital. Apparently there was no truth to the rumors that he was in fact driving.
Also this day, a creepy unsolved mystery: CBers in the New Mexico area heard a call from someone purporting to be a 7-year old named Larry. Larry said he and his father were hunting when their truck tipped over (at least we know Stevie wasn't driving), killing his father. Larry's calls continued for a few days, changing channels in apparent panic as the signal strength faded. A search was organized (and according to the stories I read, "organized" is stretching the term), but nothing was ever found. Eventually it was declared a hoax, and no one ever heard from Larry or his father again.
Stevie, however, recovered from his incident.
Welcome to another round of Time Machine, and this week we have- A top ten inside the shuffle ten; a tight three way battle in the panel picks; another unknown song so unknown I couldn't find it... it's like it's "alien" or something; and a six degrees led off by 1947's Next Great Star! Who is it? Give ya a clue- he married Miss Ellie!
MY Miss Ellie??? WTH??!?
So gather 'round, y'all, and we'll get on with this week's gusher of music!
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Our panel this week includes WGRO Buffalo, KOL Seattle, old friend WDGY Minneapolis, KAFY Bakersfield, WWDJ Hackensack, WHB Kansas City, WLLL (because all the good letters were taken) Lynchburg, old friend KPOI Honolulu, WBBM Chicago (which I've never known as anything but all-news), WXKY Sarasota, old friend WIXY Cleveland, and old chum, er, CHUM Toronto. This daring dozen gave us 21 different songs and 9 number one votes, including Bobby "Boris" Pickett's Monster Mash (Toronto), The Carpenters' Yesterday Once More (Chicago), Bloodstone's Natural High (Honolulu, of course), Jim Croce's Bad Bad Leroy Brown (KC), and Say Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose by Dawn (Buffalo). The top four was highlighted by a 30-26-20 finish, that went like this:
With 15 points and the #1 from Hackensack, Diana Ross and Touch Me In The Morning, the national #1.
With... well, you know the points from here, and the #1 from Sarasota, Wings and Live And Let Die, the national #2.
With number ones from Seattle and Cleveland, the national #3, Maureen McGovern's Poseidon Adventure theme, The Morning After.
The unknown song I unfortunately chose was actually the #7 on Sarasota this week, it was called Barroom Sweeper, and it was recorded by a southern rock band called Mose Jones. Actually this was the first incarnation of Mose Jones, and had been signed by Al Kooper and his fledgling Sounds of the South label- the label that would first sign another struggling young band, Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Mose never hit the charts in either incarnation. A couple years after their first group folded, most of the originals got together, this time under the producing aegis of Buddy Buie of the Atlanta Rhythm Section. In fact Mose Jones II's song Alien was recorded by ARS, who took it to #29 (it was their last chart hit).
Here is Mose Jones II with a cool tune from their 1978 lp:
10- Roll Over Beethoven, this time by ELO, leads us off at #48 in it's 13th week.
9- Paul Simon, also in his 13th week, dropping to #49 with Kodachrome.
8- Cher was in her 4th week at #54 with Half-Breed.
7- The Isley Brothers were in their third week at #55 with That Lady.
6- The Edgar Winters Group was in their second week with Free Ride, at #69.
5- Rod Stewart's cover of Twistin' The Night Away was at #70 after 2 weeks.
4- Coven, in a week full of movie themes, has One Tin Soldier (the Legend Of Billy Jack) at 75 in it's sixth week.
3- If you thought Looking Glass (Brandy) was a one-hit wonder, you should listen to their second hit, which was at #77 after five weeks:
2- Joe Walsh holds this spot with his hit Rocky Mountain Way, at #83 in its second week.
And the top bottom, and our only debut this week...
America with... Muskrat Love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was at 89 this week.
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And now, presenting the Next New Star of 1947...
....Howard Keel! Howard got the title for his lead performances in Carousel and Oklahoma!, the first to sing both leads on stage in one day! He was so popular that he was the first pick for the lead Gene Kelly got in Singin' In The Rain. Gene sang that 1929 song in the 1952 movie, but it was dutch artist Taco who put in on the charts in 1983 after hitting #1 with Puttin' On The Ritz. Singin' didn't do near so well- it never charted here, and its high water mark was a #49 peak in Germany. Now Puttin' On The Ritz was also an old classic, written by Irving Berlin. Berlin had another pop connection when his God Bless America was recorded by, of all people, Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention! That was on the lp Uncle Meat, which also had one of its four sides dedicated to variations on a song called King Kong. And that was the song the Mothers were in the middle of when "some stupid with a flare gun" burned the concert arena in Montreaux down, leading Deep Purple to write and record the song which was at #8 nationally this week- but got no love from the panel- Smoke On The Water.
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And now, the shuffle ten!
If you go back to week #9, you'll see the video to our number ten- a band I discovered en route to other things, Fraser and DeBolt, with a song called Them Dance Hall Girls. If you've forgotten it, refer to my post here.
The Cars pick up their second S10 with the b-side of their first single- I'm In Touch With Your World, the back of Just What I Needed, which hit #27 in 1978.
Gene Pitney finally claims a S10, this week's #8, with 24 Hours From Tulsa, a #3 hit in 1963.
Pablo Cruise's biggest hit, the #6 Love Will Find A Way from 1978, is their second trip into the S10, landing at our seven spot.
Charlie Daniel's Uneasy Rider, which had three votes and 7 points from the panel this week and peaked at #9 in 1973, is our number six.
Our five hole is filled by Utopia's Abandon City, an lp cut from 1977's Oops, Wrong Planet ( the same lp which had the original version of Love Is The Answer, which England Dan and JF Coley would take to #10.) Todd Rundgren et al claim their second S10.
Our number four claims my second all time video hit- aHa! with Take On Me. The #1 hit in 10 nations, 2nd or 3rd in five more, was number one here as well.
Speaking of England Dan and JF Coley, one of my top ten all time, their Nights Are Forever Without You, is at our #3. It hit #10 as well in 1976.
And our number two brings up another one of those "how many versions of this song hit the charts?" And the answer is ten different versions have charted.
Of what song, Chris?
It charted 4 times in 1949: Burl Ives took it to #21; Vaughn Monroe's orchestra took it to the top, and it was the top song of the year; Bing Crosby took it to #14; and Peggy Lee hit #2 on the "most played by DJs" chart.
What song, Chris?
The Ramrods took an instrumental version to #30 in 1961; Lawrence Welk also instrumentally hit with it, #87 in that same year; the Baja Marimba Band as well, going to #52 in 1966. The Outlaws took a southern rock version to #31 in 1980...
...ummm, Chris?
And two versions hit the country charts. Roy Clark took it to #27 in our year of 1973... and the last one...
CHRIS!!!!!
Oh, yeah, our number two on the S10 was also a #2 country hit for Johnny Cash in 1979- Ghost Riders In The Sky.
And now, the number ones...
Survey says...
... the Stories with Brother Louie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This interracial rocker was the week's #5 on Cashbox.
And, shuffle says...
CCR with Bad Moon Rising!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Next week we hit the end of this cycle of years with 1978! See you then!
If you ever climbed inside my head on a Monday, you'd know I spend a lot of time telling myself to move onto another subject. I have this sad tendency about thinking how bad the world is, how the PC police seem determined to suck all the color out of life, what kind of mess these little kids are facing and the things that were so cool when we were kids that they'll miss. Celebrating Christmas, heck, even Valentine's Day in school. The special magic of the seasons that adults now claim are offensive to their teeny tiny sensibilities.
Finally something stupid will happen (Like listening to the boss praising us for getting better at punching in on our new system, and saying, "Oh, crap, I forgot to punch in!") and the mood will dissipate. But then you come home and you read the news. Today seemed a bit exceptional to me.
For example: A Navy official told Fox News that punishing a lieutenant commander who used an unauthorized weapon to fire back at the Chattanooga gunman who shot and killed five service members could not be “completely ruled out,” and two high-profile former military officers, including presidential candidate Jim Webb, say the Navy is at least seriously considering charging the man.
This is the typical one size fits all reasoning that gets lemonade stands shut down and clerks fired from gas stations for preventing robberies. You want my opinion? (Too bad if answer is no) The only knucklehead needing discipline is the one who established no-gun zones for military personnel. That reasoning is what had French cops (unarmed) standing with their hands in their pants while the Charlie Hedbo massacre took place.
For example: "Caitlyn Jenner's 1984 Olympic Torch is sold at auction for $24,000". You ask me, That was BRUCE's torch. Bruce doesn't exist anymore. If Caitlyn is what he/she/it is, then he/she/it should give up all those medals that HE won- because HE doesn't exist anymore. And whichever way you slice it (don't get any ideas on "it"), it is NOT Caitlyn's torch.
For example: While I have every sympathy for Brianna Radar, and I think it is commendable that she is warning people of the dangers in misuse of cinnamon after her 4 year old son died from it, I have to say- Why are there things that ought not to be consumed by 4-year-olds within their reach, and why (since she apparently knew he was "exploring in the kitchen") didn't she either supervise the exploring or end it? I can remember being four years old. I had been taught by then what not to get into. I had been taught not everything belongs in my mouth. And if I did do something I shouldn't (like using margarine to "slick back my hair"), I swiftly was taught NOT to do it again.
For example: Just so we're clear, why would the family of 19-year old Michelle Wankoff (appropriate last names, apparently) NOT get help for her when she had already tried to poison the family dog, but instead wait until she beat it to death with a shovel and a claw hammer? is this more of that "we must be tolerant of her means of expression" thing?
For example: Kraft having to recall several packs of Singles slices because not all the plastic is coming off, and people are not only NOT bothering to check and see if they've gotten it all off, but they are missing big enough pieces that they are CHOKING on it! Okay, reality check: We did a picnic on our vacation, and one of the items in the picnic were deli slices of cheese. Though I didn't realize it at first, each slice was separated by a 2X2 piece of wax paper. Yes, I took a big bite. Yes, I chewed. No, I did not choke, because I didn't try to swallow my sandwich whole. I didn't have to take the cheese back to Kroger to have it recalled. I survived and learned from the experience. If there's a problem with the wrap, is Kraft liable? Certainly! Should a reasonable person be able to catch plastic on their cheese before they choke? You betcha. STOP INHALING YOUR FOOD, my children!
For example: Dems are becoming worried about Hilary's chances in '16, and word is spreading that more qualified opponents, er, options, are needed in the primary race. Among the names besides Socialist Bernie Sanders (Stay tuned for more here) and the other, non-mentioned candidates (the recently mentioned Mr. Webb, along with Lincoln Chaffee and Martin O'Malley), our beloved VEEP Joe Biden is considering bumbling into the picture. Beyond showing us what Dan Quayle would be like at his age, Biden would bring a sense of impending entertainment to the White House not seen since the administration of Gerald R. Ford. And other names in the mix include global warming scientist and internet inventor Al Gore (funded by Al-Jazeera, who enjoys a good joke as much as the next guy), along with courageous Vietnam hero John (I can't believe Iran would lie to me) Kerry. Oh, and also one Howard Schultz, whose qualifications as CEO of Starbucks CER-tainly mark him as a viable candidate.
And yes, I know I could do an equal if not better job with the 1,347 current GOP candidates, but we'd be here all night.
And, for final example: Let's go back to that socialist thing, where we find DNC Chairbeing Debbie Whatshername-Schultz getting asked twice- once by loyalist media guy Chris Matthews, and again on Meet The Press- just what the difference is between a Democrat and a Socialist. Both times, she hmmed and hawed her way out of answering. Now Matthews prolly don't get the difference either, which is why he asked, but you'd have thought she MIGHT have thought about having a pat answer on an index card before going in front of the serious Sunday journalists.
So what is the difference? Well, I saw the answer to that among the comments when a friend posted the article to FB:
The difference is obvious. Socialist are at the very least honest about their ideology. Democrats are only fooling themselves.
Okay, so the week-long marathon of us actually enjoying the world is now over, and this blog returns to getting its kicks from reading about the wider world. Let's get started then, shall we?
ITEM: A spam caller made the mistake of hitting up an L.A. blogger the other week (don't they realize how vicious we are?) The guy was a bit of a screwball, and she opted- as I would- to get optimum entertainment from him: She told him she was recording the whole thing.
"It's illegal to record somebody unless you tell them previously, unless they're committing a felony," Mark (the caller) said. Mark said he did not believe he was being recorded and offered Jessica Gottlieb $100 if she could play back any of the conversation. He likened the money to "like a tip at a strip club." "You're trying to deceive me and now you think you've got some mind control thing going on, when you don't. I am in charge. I am always in charge, and I will always be in charge. No one pulls the wool over my eyes," the caller said. The telemarketer, still not believing he was being recorded, asked if Gottlieb was planning to put her recording "on YouTube." "Yeah, I kinda was planning on it," Gottlieb replied. "No, you weren't. You just made that up and you're not funny," Mark said.
But he just got weirder. Whether he was playing to an audience, or just wasn't very tightly strung is debatable, but it certainly seemed like the little wheels slipped off his trolley.
"You're struggling for something to do now that you're caught in the spider's web," Mark said, following up with a quote from Walter Scott: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!" The caller eventually hung up after a suitably bizarre sign-off: "You've managed to stump our panel, ma'am, we're gonna go and flip the rest of the cards over and tell you what our contestant does for a living."
Gee, it would seem she exposes nutbags. Step right up!
ITEM: WalletHub recently ranked the 100 most populous cities by a sophisticated set of 21 metrics to determine the best and worst cities to drive in, based on costs associated, driving conditions, and so forth (C'mon, I said there was 21 of 'em!), and Fort Wayne came in #22! The top ten-
10- Raleigh NC
9- Winston-Salem NC (Hey, cheaters!)
8- Colorado Springs CO
7- Durham NC (Hey, is WalletHub based in North Carolina?)
6- Reno NV
5- Tuscon AZ
4- Greensboro (you guessed it) NC
3- Lincoln, NE (Because who uses the roads there?)
2- Corpus Christi TX
(Drum rolllll) 1- Lubbock TX.
New York, Washington, and Philly were the worst, and the cities were broke down by metric; thus, we find California dominating the fewest and most hours in traffic (Bakersfield, Stockton, and Fresno in the best, L.A., San Fran, and Long Beach tied for worst with Oakland right behind); Boise the least likely place to have an accident, Boston the worst (but ironically with the fewest repair shops per capita); Detroit not surprisingly the highest in car thefts (much too hard to just go pick one up at the factory); California also swept the worst gas prices (most of the best prices were in Texas), and most car washes and repair shops were in Orlando.
Indianapolis came in 66th, with Fort Wayne really clobbering them in the safety parameters 21 rank to 86.
ITEM: Local story #1: A rural road near Fort Wayne, CR 150 in Kosciusko County, was closed overnight a week or so ago by... a herd of bison.
According to Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Chad Hill, crews worked into the night to corral the bison after they escaped from a pen at their farm. Hill said a slew of police, animal control workers and volunteers tried to keep them off the county roads and Indiana 13, a fairly well-traveled state highway that travels north and south from busy U.S. 30.
The latest assault from the animalpocolypse consisted of 20 head who were corralled and brought back home over the next few days.
ITEM: Our favorite post-Soviet nation, Kazakhstan, has labored much of the summer under a heat wave that has fried much of Europe and Asia. So people have been taking to the lakes, and like in any post-Soviet nation, they do it with vodka. As a result, drunk-drowning deaths are up, and the government has come up with yet another clever solution:
Rescuers in Kazakhstan have resorted to using a man dressed as Death to ram home their safety message at a Kazakh city's beach. The shock tactics have been adopted in response to a sharp increase in the number of drownings at the popular bathing lakes of Ust-Kamenogorsk, with 40 people dying in a hotter-than-usual summer, according to the Kazakh news website Informburo. Frustrated at the apparent failure of traditional safety drives, rescue officials launched a campaign - dubbed "Scream to the rescue" - featuring a scythe-wielding figure in a dark cloak and the iconic mask from the popular Scream horror film franchise. "I'm waiting for you, rule-breaker" reads a banner on the Grim Reaper's rubber dinghy as it floats menacingly out in deeper waters.
According to locals, the admittedly impressive sight hasn't done anything to slow the area's "mixed-drink" predilection.
ITEM: And you let these people teach your children, and wonder why we're so screwed up, part 5,673: Recently Rutgers professor of (guess what?) journalism and media studies Deepa Kumar got into Deepa $#!t for a tweet that said the US of A is more brutal than ISIS (based apparently on Desert Storm stats).
Yeah, nice job, U of Pittsburgh, for that doctorate...
This was not the first evidence that Kumar's elevator might be stuck between floors. An endorsement of a FB article included her statement “Okay, I'm sold on using the term ‘douchebag’ to describe rich, white entitled males and their misogynistic, racist behavior!” ( So much for tolerance); she also attacked Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim and activist against the practice of female genital mutilation,as an “islamophobe and native informant” on FB, that home of pseudo-intellectual trolls everywhere. But her topper comes in her thoughts on Marxism. You remember, the ideology famous for destroying the lives of multiple millions in Russia, China, and elsewhere? Of course, she blasted it as brutal, right?
She shared a link on the "Greater New York Marxist Conference, saying, "Here is a great conference on Marxism and why it makes sense!”
She has shut down her FB account to all but her acolytes now, and Rutgers has courageously decided to discipline said nothing at all on the matter.
BTW, Kumar's also the free-speech expert that kept Condi Rice from making a commencement speech at Rutgers.
ITEM: I recently read an article called "Ten Incredible Scientific Discoveries About Dogs". (If you haven't guessed it, this is where I usually cue up the Neil DeGrasse Tyson picture, because I'm such a racist.) While there were a couple of things I didn't know (though I hardly call "dogs have three eyelids", and "dog nose prints are used for ID" are incredible) I'd have to say I hope they didn't use government funds to figure out the other "incredible discoveries":
- Dogs love their humans (took them an EEG to figure that one out)
- They are about as smart as the average 2-year-old (and as well behaved in Scrappy's case)
- Their paws smell like corn chips (I think I featured that on here a year or so ago. Make sure he hasn't just peed on his foot when you test this.)
- Their night vision is better than ours. (Spend one night with Scrappy and figure that out.)
- They "most likely dream". Amazingly, that one they say hasn't been proved 100% for sure. Again, spend one night with Scrappy.
- They listen when you talk. Of course, that's only when they feel like it most of the time.
- They do most of their sweating through panting. Insert your own "I've known that since __ grade".
ITEM: Local story #2: This was confirmed by Parkview Hospital as the actual name of a baby born at their maternity center, after it ran on their "Look Who's New" billboard:
ITEM: Finally, my friends at The Epoch Times came up with an article on "5 Expensive Chinese Construction Projects That Are Useless". You'll like living in Fort Wayne a lot better, Bobby G., after reading these white elephants:
1- Harbin Pharmaceutical's headquarters was made up like a mini-Versailles, complete with a museum of the Chinese block-printing method.
Pictures from Getty Images
2- In an "underdeveloped town in Henan province, officials decided to develop it by increasing tourism. The plan was to set up a sightseeing train line through the area, at a cost of over $1 million USD. Thing was, it the train didn't pass through anything worth seeing, and shortly after its 2010 launch it stopped running and has sat abandoned ever since.
3- "Qingdao’s Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is the largest ocean span bridge in the world at 26.4 miles, but not because it has to be. Although breaking records, the bridge is built along the widest section of the bay, and serves pretty much the same function as a pre-existing highway that runs parallel to the bridge. Furthermore, it only shortens the trip by about ten minutes, while charging significantly higher prices. Thus, the costly construction endeavor sees little traffic." IOW, a bridge to nowhere anyone wants to go. Kinda like the Golden Gate.
4- Eminent domain was used to kick out thousands of farmers, whose taxes then paid for a $185 million loan, to build a 30,000 seat Olympic level stadium, that sits unused since the city (Loudi) has no sports team and no planned Olympics coming.
5- And finally, a canal system was built, with a price tag around 80 billion bucks, to divert 10 billion tons of water a year from the Yangtze to farms in the north. Trouble is, they didn't pitch it right so less than 5% of the expected water comes down the waterway, which means it costs so much to buy the water nobody wants it, which means it wasn't worth running enough pumps to get the 10 billion tons to flow, which means they have, at this point, paid over $50 million a mile for a 1,500 mile-long concrete ditch.
Sunday message has been rather quiet lately, and it's not hard to find out why. Let's take a trip to Ezekiel 16.
Here we find the prophet comparing Jerusalem before the fall to her two "sisters", Samaria and Sodom. For those confused on terminology, Samaria is the northern Kingdom of Israel, which fell before Judah (Jerusalem) did. Sodom I'm sure you're acquainted with, though maybe not as well as you should be. And as you read Ezekiel, he points out what Sodom's sin was- and we'll come back to that. But what was Samaria's? That you have to know a little Bible history.
When Jeroboam split from Judah, he had the problem of an ostensibly religious kingdom now cut off from their place of worship. So he set up two symbolic golden calves, one in the land of the tribe of Dan, one in the land of Ephraim. Now, the tribes' list traditionally removes Levi (as they had no land of their own) and splits Joseph into the tribes of his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. But in Revelation 7, you see that Dan and Ephraim have been removed from the tribe list for this sin, replaced with Levi and Joseph. The sin being, they set out to do their thing, rather than God's thing, and slowly (maybe not so slowly) drifted into Idolatry. Whatever the original intention, once they moved out of God's will, they lost it.
Sodom, though, everybody says, "Well, they were homosexual." But the sin Ezekiel reveals in 16 has little to do with that:
Eze 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and her daughters. Also, she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Eze 16:50 Also, they were haughty and did abomination before My face, so I turned them away as I saw fit.
You see, Sodom was in a RICH land, so rich it was compared with both the Garden of Eden and Egypt (Gen 13:10). Pulling this verse apart further, there are three different words in the OT translated as "idleness"- one is out and out laziness, one is neglectfulness. This one, though, is akin to "repose"- they just kind of laid around in a leisure fashion, like you'd expect the rich to do. Not surprising then, even as wealthy as they were, that Abraham had to pull their fat out of the fire when Chedorlaomer and his buddies mopped them up in Gen. 14. But the third sin is really fascinating- they didn't "strengthen the hand of the poor and needy". If you research the words here, you literally get they didn't "enclose the open hand" of the humble and downtrodden. Didn't take the hand of the poor in spirit in their own.
And their disrespect of others was reflected in their v.50 sin against God- sinning openly, impudently, not caring whether God noticed or not.
Now there are a LOT of ways that I can point out that Sodom here, Sodom (also compared to Egypt, BTW) in Revelation 7, and the ship Tyre in Ezekiel and Babylon the Great in Revelation point right at something very much like our United States, but that isn't my point today.
Instead, I urge you to read farther down Ezekiel 16. Three points come out in the remainder of the chapter which are on my mind today.
First of all, Judah is told that its sins are worse because they justify what Samaria and Sodom did (v 52). They declare it clean.
Second, and perhaps the biggest personal point, comes from verse 56:
Eze 16:56 And thy sister Sodom hath not been for a report in thy mouth, In the day of thine arrogancy...
This was the closest to the way my Bible put it. Basically, Sodom and her sins should have been a proverbial saying among them, something they should have been able to mock.
In other words, THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.
They should have looked at what happened to Samaria and Sodom and learned from it. Instead, they went joyfully on with the sin, made worse by the examples set for them.
Which brings us to the third part, at the very end of the chapter. In his description of the day of Israel's salvation, they aren't going to get away without remembering their past:
Eze 16:60 But I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will raise up to you an everlasting covenant.
Eze 16:61 Then you shall remember your ways and be ashamed, when you shall receive your sisters, the older than you to the younger than you, and I will give them to you for daughters, but not by your covenant.
Eze 16:62 And I, even I, will raise up My covenant with you. And you shall know that I am Jehovah,
Eze 16:63 so that you may remember and be ashamed. And you will not any more open your mouth, because of your humiliation, when I am propitiated for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord Jehovah.
Okay, let me unpack that. Israel is going to be the people of the Kingdom of Christ, we know that. Other people will be under them- including counterparts of Sodom and Samaria, not as sisters/equals anymore, but as daughters, to be guided and led. But, the rub is, Israel is going to know that they were no better, were in fact worse than those now in their charge, and are going to feel a deep, mouth-shutting humiliation over it. The thing that will keep them humble is looking at these daughters that they once scorned, knowing that their past sins were far worse, because they should have known better.
So, to why the Sunday message has been quiet, I let God judge. Have I "made clean" my own sins? Have I been impudent in them before the Lord? We all have our "pet sin", that we give ourselves permission to commit, as if God needs to make a concession to us for all the good we do. Where are you, where am I, with that pet sin? Are we Samaria, starting out with good intent and ending with ashen rationalizations? Are we Sodom, impudently doing the pet sin, and "God can't stop me"?
Or are we just Jerusalem, knowing better, awaiting the day God removes our opportunity to speak for Him? Hopefully, I still have time to speak.
A lone man looking for means of expression in a tsunami of information. Seeking truth justice and the American way in the perspective of a Nixon conservative. And the Commissioner of the free world's smallest and best fantasy football league.
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