The question came about when the Georgia Institute of technology was about to spend 3 quarters of a million bucks from the National Science Foundation (NSF, one of several acronyms we will be using to indicate "your wallet") on the function of the hairs between an insect's eyes and found that nobody had done a quantitative study of just how many hairs that might be.
The fun part is, they realized that you get more hairs with more surface area, and the surface area of some animals is astounding. For instance:
Honey bee SA= a slice of toast SA
House cat SA= Ping pong table
Chinchilla SA= SUV
Sea otter SA= hockey rink
Now at this point, I'm already saying, "Hell yeah, I'll kick in $5 for this one!" (Actually, we'd all be kicking in about half a penny, so it's all good.) So who has the MOST hair? Butterflies and moths rack up about a 100 BILLION hairs to top the list; among mammals, a beaver has one for every man, woman, and child in the US of A.
And our little contest? They tied at roughly 10 million. In other fun stories:
SOMEONE WAS MOST DEFINITELY DRUNK WHEN COMING UP WITH THIS ONE: Once again it was the tag team of GIT and NSF who came up with the question: How long does it take to pee like a racehorse? So they went to the zoo with stop-action cameras and measuring cups to see how fast and how much it took for various animals to relieve themselves- I suspect Noah was standing by for the results on this one!
Yeah, I know. But it's still funny!
Anyway, they found out most animals, regardless of size, can usually empty themselves in somewhere between 17 and 21 seconds. Whether you are the housecat, which pees about 5 kg, or an elephant who can fill a large trash can in one shot. And this very necessary information took only $331,000 of your money.
COMING SOON TO A PICKUP BAR NEAR YOU: Bowdoin College siphoned almost $4 million from the NSF and NIH trough to put tiny electrical caps on male goldfish, and then injected them with testosterone to see what sexual behavior they would exhibit. Because of this research, we now know that he can tell the difference between genders even through a plexiglass barrier just by sight. At higher doses, we learned he could leap a two-foot high partition.
BUT IS IT A GATEWAY TO HARDER STUFF? The U of Illinois teamed with an Australian school and the NIH to see if COCAINE would affect the dance bees do to alert the hive of nectar-containing flowers. This quarter-million grant tells us that yes, they get 25% more excited than they should- but only in the context of the dance. Removed from the dance floor (the area where the hivemates watch the dance), the bees did... well, nothing much. And what is the takeaway from this study? That even though they say honeybees are dying off and we'll soon be in big trouble foodwise, they are still willing to make addicts out of the poor bastards for no reason.
And with that, I have exhausted Sen. Jeff Flake's list of stupid crap your money gets spent on.
The last time I did a rant on comic books, Superman had declared he was no longer a US citizen. Because that's what liberal-minded extremist writers do. But just wait until you hear the latest.
Ever since Marvel broke up the Spider-man/Mary Jane marriage "because it's too hard to write a marriage into a superhero comic", It has amazed me how many no-talent writers try to blame their inability to write compelling stories on the limitations of the character. He's too old fashioned (so captain America loses his mojo and passes the mantle onto his conveniently Black best friend). He has too much back story (so pop out Wolverine, pop in a young female "wolverine"). We can't create a new female/ethnic/gay character (so now, Thor's a woman, Spider-Man's hispanic, Iceman's been gay all these years).
If anything, it's worse at DC. Let's look at what has happened there in relation to this rant. Years and years ago, it was, "we have too much backstory, too many "alternate versions", too many Golden agers that have to be in their 90's by now." So along comes Crisis on Infinite earths. Just destroy everything, bring it back into one earth, get rid of the ones you don't want, and shoehorn everybody else in. Actually it made sense, but one thing that they did that pissed the comic world off was they killed off Barry Allen, the Flash. Gave the title to Wally West, the Kid Flash, and he did a damn fine job- until having him get married and have twins made it too hard too write for. And what's up with Superman marrying Lois Lane? OMG, how do I write a believable female lead?
So then they come up with the "brilliant idea" called the New 52. Basically, Barry Allen's Flash returns from some speed limbo, but his return causes reality to collapse in on itself. Suddenly a bunch of people nobody wanted to write anymore disappeared, the Golden Age Green Lantern goes from being an older man with a wife and kids to a young gay man, and Superman and Lois were NEVER married, Ma and Pa Kent are out of the picture...
...and Superman gets to be an asshole ( see Batman Vs Superman movie), and also date Wonder Woman.
The only problem with all these lazy man revisions is that a LOT of fans don't care for them. Thus Cap has his mojo back, Wolverine does not, but returns as "Old Man Logan"... but the best retract of all belongs to the Man Of Steel.
You see, DC has another "kind-of" reboot coming, in which Wally West (one of those characters DC tried to get rid of) comes back to let everyone know that some cosmic douche has stolen 10 years of their lives. While apparently DC isn't going to take it ALL back to the point of the latest goof-up, there is ONE major part that is going back the way it was....
If I understand what I read last night on Comic Book Resources, here's the gist: When the old 52 became the New 52, the original Superman and Mrs. Clark Kent didn't disappear- they went into hiding, living a normal life as Mr. and Mrs. White- and child! However, just as Wally comes back and de-screws/re-screws everything up, douchebag Superman gets killed in battle, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Superman to re-enter the scheme of things- even though everything by their perspective is still fairly messed up. And what about Wonder Woman?
Credit this to TextsFromSuperheroes.com
Now mind you, I gave up comic books several years ago, right after a time travelling deer reduced us to alternate automobile provisions. But from the outside, it would seem to me that DC and Marvel might be a tad better off to just tell their writers to...
...and write the characters that the fans really want, and if you want a gay/female/ethnic/non-old-fashioned character, do what Stan and Jack did....
And MAKE THEM UP! It ain't the fans fault if you make 'em boring...
I am studying Genesis 4 and in what may be a bunny trail I found what may be a lesson. I call it a tale of two families.
First we look at what is said about the family of Cain. Cain's first son was Enoch (not the more famous one, who we'll get to in a bit). Pride was always Cain's downfall, and that of his line, it would seem. The name Enoch means "dedication", and Cain named his city he was building in the boy's honor. My Bible directed me to Psalm 49 for more understanding of this...
Psa 49:10 For he sees wise men die; together the fool and the animal-like ones perish and leave their riches to others. Psa 49:11 Their inward thought is that their houses shall last forever, their dwelling-places to all generations; they call lands after their own names. Psa 49:12 But man shall not remain high in honor; he is like the animals; they shall be cut off.
So the naming of the city is a monument to Cain's pride. And what came of it? Well, it took five generations for anything mentionable in the Bible to come of it. Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, and Methushael come and go before we hit Lamech (also a #1 of 2). Lamech is the height of pride; he names himself ten times more important as his forefather Cain, despite the same crime:
Gen 4:23 And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice, you wives of Lamech; listen to my words; for I have killed a man because of my wound, and a young man because of my hurt.
Gen 4:24 For Cain is avenged sevenfold, and Lamech seventy seven.
Furthermore, as I studied this, I studied the name meanings with my concordance. And while I will get to the other names later, I want to hit on the names he gave for his three sons. Jabal, the inventor of herding; Jubal, inventor of music; and Tubal-Cain, the first smith. All three names come from the same root meaning- "stream", or "flowing". Thus even though his progeny produced things we use even now, he wanted it known that it all "flowed" from himself.
Now, let's look at the line of Cain's younger brother Seth, who followed in the footsteps of slain Abel. His first son was named Enosh, and it is said there was immediate results in this line- that men began to call upon the name of God. Then came Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, and the fifth generation Enoch- a man so holy, the result of five generations of obedience, that he became one of only two mortal men (Elijah being the other much later) to be taken into heaven without the necessity of dying.
So we see that obedience and patience brought the line of Seth a nearly unique reward- while the pride of the line of Cain brought more pride, claiming victories not its own, and ducking responsibility that was.
But what about the name Lamech? The concordance says it was from an ancient root, meaning unknown. But I am thinking that it might have to do with the concept of "results." You saw swiftly the results of pride with the ungodly Lamech. But two generations down from the good Enoch we find the good Lamech, father of Noah, who said this:
Gen 5:28 And Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years and fathered a son.
Gen 5:29 And he called his name Noah, saying, This one shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed.
So one Lamech gave a speech displaying his pride and rejecting his judgment. The other, the result of obedience, gave a speech seeking comfort for mankind and accepting the validity of God's judgment.
I mentioned I looked up the name meanings earlier. The ungodly line went like this:
Cain: The main meaning is "to erect", which would be a good name for the first child ever born. But it also has the connotations of "a spear", meaning violence, and "provoked to jealousy."
Enoch: Dedication, as I mentioned earlier. Considering that the father names the son, one wonders if Cain was dedicating the city to the child, or both to himself.
Irad: Fugitive. God had said Cain would be a vagabond; it maybe that his family were pariahs even in their own city.
Mehujael: "Smitten by God." One commentator mentioned at this point Deuteronomy 5:9-
Deu 5:9 You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I Jehovah your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me...
-and the fourth Generation would be:
Methushael: Which translates to "Man of God." Could it be that in the fourth generation, God relented? But I also looked up the very similar Methuselah, which translates basically to "man of the spear"- but some commentators, including Wesley, linked to another ancient word for death. and a case could be stretched to make the name mean "God is mortal" (God is dead?) Purely my speculation. But we will also find something curious on the other side's fourth generation, so let's go with the thought that Mehujael got tired of being smitten, and hoped his child would follow God and escape the curse.
Lamech and his sons we've already covered.
The Godly side starts with:
Seth: not surprisingly, "substitution" meaning a new son to replace the murdered Abel.
Enosh: His name means "mortal"- and the concordance makes note that it isn't noble as in the sense of Adam being indicative of all mankind. More of a "Remember, man that thou art dust" way.
Cainan: Not surprisingly, not far off from Cain. It also means "to erect" but in the sense of a "fixed" point, as in a home or a nest.
Mahalaleel: "Praise of God." So far, we've had the recognition of mortality (rather than pride), a fixed point rather than a vagabond against the Lord, and now praise. But then we hit generation four...
Jared: Means "descent". As if the generation of Methushael and Jared is when the bottom started to drop out of the world's morality and faith.
Enoch: already discussed, although this time the dedication is to God rather than self.
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I did want to mention a couple more names. Methuselah, as I touched on, meant Man of the spear/dart/missile, and several commentators (by evidence, incorrectly) took the fact of Methuselah's death the same year as the flood and used it to stretch the meaning into "when he dies, the judgment." Another expert fairly well linguistically debunked that line, though. So was Methuselah, son of Enoch, some sort of warrior? Doesn't seem to me likely. Another interpretation on the name by the concordance could make it read Man of the Branch ( or shoot of growth). So if you look at names created to be a hopeful prophecy, you would think that Enoch was hopeful that Methuselah would bring a new growth of faith in a world on the sharp decline.
The other, of course, is Noah. His name means "rest". And I can't help thinking that Jesus was thinking just like Lamech #2 when He said:
Mat 11:28 Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29 Take My yoke on you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls.
We are come to June 3rd, 1971, and I SWORE that if there was ANYTHING else to highlight today, I would NOT mention the Cubs' Ken Holtzman no-hitting my Reds.
The play No Sex Please, We're British opened at the Strand in London.
The band Hot Tuna (think rump Jefferson Airplane) released Live From The Fillmore East.
Screw you, Ken Holtzman.
Welcome to this week's Time Machine, where we will find: Two more M10 records fall this week; the Panel gives us 9 number ones and a tight race at the top; how we get from Juice Newton to Jesus; and a Panel pick makes the UK ten! Batter up, let's have a swing at this!
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This week's Panel consists of: WKNR Detroit, WGH Newport News, VA, WAPE Jacksonville (the "Big Ape"?), KAKC Tulsa, WDAK Columbus GA, WCFL Chicago, WEEX Easton PA, WDGY Minneapolis, KRUX Phoenix, KNUZ Houston (I woulda thought this was an all-news format), WCRV Washington NJ, and KCBQ San Diego. This lot gave us 30 different songs, and nine different #1s- only two songs hit #1 multiple places. The 5 that didn't get on the Panel 4 were: Eighth Day's She's Not Just Another Woman (Detroit), Beginning Of The End's Funky Nassau (J-ville), Donny Osmond's Sweet And Innocent (those real rockers in Chicago), Three Dog Night's Joy To The World (Easton), and The Raiders' Indian Reservation (Houston). Detroit was the place to be for low charters- they had Five Man Electrical Band's Signs at #3, while it was at #70 (but climbing) nationally; and at their #5, they had an early Earth Wind And Fire tune called Love Is Life- which was three weeks away from charting nationally, and only got to #90 then!
Needless to say, a big crowd like this leaves the votes rather dispersed, but not enough to prevent a really close race at the top. The Panel Four:
With 16 points and the #1 from Phoenix, Ringo Starr with It Don't Come Easy, the national #4.
With also 16 points, but 2 #1s (Washington and Tulsa), the national #9- the Carpenters and Rainy Days And Mondays.
With 27 points- one shy of the top- and three #1s (Newport News, Minneapolis, and San Diego), the Rolling Stones with the national runner up, Brown Sugar.
And the #1, with 28 points and a #1 from the Peach State (as well as the national top spot)... stay tuned.
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This week I struggled a little bit with the M10- until I finally got it right, and said, there, that's pretty good at that! Anyway, we have one of two debuts at #10. Sisters Jahan and Yasmine Youseff call themselves Krewella, and they are dynamite at #10 with their hit:
(Yes, Shady, I know, Beauty contest...)
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Juice Newton was always a favorite of mine as the 80's stretched into God-I-can't-stand-this-junk. One of her best was Love's Been A Little Bit Hard On Me (#7, 1982). It was written by one Gary Burr, who also spurred the 80's country comeback of Billy Joe Royal by penning his top ten country hit from 1985 Burned Like A Rocket. Back in the day, BJR's main songwriter was Joe South, a household name in this household, who wrote Billy's hits Down In The Boondocks, I Knew You When, and Yo-Yo (which was a bigger hit for the Osmonds). Another Joe South comp was Deep Purple's Hush, which was sung by original lead singer Rod Evans. Evans was replaced by Ian Gillan (no relation to Karen Gillan, I checked), who was the most recognizable voice for Purple down the years. He also was Jesus Christ on the lp Jesus Christ Superstar, and Andrew Lloyd Webber would have had him play the part in the movie, too, but he wanted £ 250,000- approximately 1100 times what Judas Iscariot got- and wanted the boys in the band to get paid without actually being in the film. Obviously, Gillan's career as Savior was a bit shorter than the original. Which brings us back to the sound track, and the song therein- Murray Head and Superstar- which sat at #8 this week and got no panel love.
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Jumping the gun a bit, I want to let you know that in the midst of last Friday's debauches, Spotify ran an ad that the 50th anniversary lp from the Monkees had been released. Remembering how crappy That Was Then, This Is Now had been, I stepped cautiously to the virtual turntable. I had no need to doubt, this record- called Good Times!- WILL be the lp of summer 2016. A nice mix of reconstituted recordings that never made it to the stores, revamped and cleaned up, and brand new stuff written by some surprising faces, I ordered it on the spot and it rests in our car's CD player as we speak. And one of those tunes is coming up in the M10! More on that in a bit.
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In the spirit of that last announcement, let's hear from the late Davy Jones (who has a lead vocal on the new album, BTW):
Wherever I go, people still shout out: 'Hey, hey, we're The Monkees.' And I never tire of that.
And you'll hear it here in a few minutes! Until then...
10- East Of Eden was listed as a progressive band, but sounded a lot closer to Dexy's Midnight Runners with their instrumental at the ten-spot, Jig A Jig. Not a charter here.
9- The King peaked here in April at #33 with this one, Rags To Riches.
8- Tony Christie was big in song and screen in the UK, and one of his hits was I Did What I Did For Maria.
7- McGuinness Flint, who charted here with a song on my shuffle, When I'm Dead And Gone, charted in the UK with the very similar Malt And Barley Blues.
6- Neil Diamond's I Am I Said, prolly the most profound song ever sung to a chair, had already peaked at #4 here last month.
5- The Panel #2, as well as the US #2- the Stones with Brown Sugar- along with the flip side duo of Bitch and Let It Rock.
4- Free, who you know from doing All Right Now, was at this spot with a song that didn't make it here (but should have IMHO), My Brother Jake.
3- A #9 R&B hit back in 1966 here, the Elgins get their second chance in England with Heaven Must Have Sent You.
2- I don't know which amazed me more- that R Dean Taylor's Indiana Wants Me was a hit in the UK, or that it was a bigger hit THERE (at #2) than it was here (#5 last November).
And the tops of the pops?
...an American #1 from January, Dawn and Knock Three Times!!!!!!!
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And now, the M10!
You've listened to #10 already (right? RIGHT???) so we move to #9 where Strawberry Runners set another mark- largest drop from the top, falling to #9 with When We Were Good. Of course, you'd expect a song in its 8th week on the ten to be about there...
M83 and Mai Lan move up a spot to #8 with Go!
However, the Jayhawks ignore them and stay at #7 for a second week with Lovers Of The Sun.
And now, the debut of MY first single from the Monkees new lp- a tune written by someone not unfamiliar with the top of the M10, Weezer's frontman Rivers Cuomo:
How. Cool. Was. That?
Dami Im moves up a three spot with Sound Of Silence.
The Ruth B. sandwich continues, with Superficial Love holding at 4, and 2 Poor Kids, leapfrogging her to go back to #3.
And still at #2, Telekinesis with Lean On Me.
And at #1?
M10 says...
....Tangerine with You'll Always Be Lonely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which is the record sixth different #1 in a row- and I wouldn't put money on that record being extended anytime soon....
And on the Panel?
...Honey Cone with Want Ads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next week it's back to - 1965!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tune in then!
Last time, I was going through Sen. Jeff Flake's post on some of the stupidity in government spending, and thought as long as I have nothing better to post about, why not go back to that list and see what other humor we can glean from things that should make us cry.
I CAN NAME THAT TUNE IN... Once again we footed the bill through our good friends at the National Institute of Health for a smattering of studies to learn what kind of music monkees like. At a cost of over $1 million, we learned that while chimps like West African or Indian Raga music, they didn't care for western or Japanese style music. Researchers concluded that the chimps liked the West African and Indian music the beat structure was either all strong or nearly all weak beats. The pulse of western and Japanese music was off putting to the apes. In another $2.9 million study, tamarin monkeys were given a choice of music composed "just for them"- in imitation to their own natural calls. The researchers, however, found the composition "nails on chalkboard". However, they did that there was at least one western song that took the monkeys to their happy place- Metallica's Of Wolf and Man.
I STILL WOULDN'T TEST 'EM IN A RACE: This time, our NIH buddies teamed with the National Science Foundation to try a couple ways to answer the burning question- could dinosaurs run? To do this, close to $2 million was spent on studies looking at the problem from two angles. Angle one, study lizards. Now here's a strange fact: lizards can NOT run and breathe at the same time. That left them out of the study, and scientists having to find a close relative that COULD do both. Answer: the alligator. However, alligators aren't very inclined to run. So, they had to train the gators to run on treadmills.
After several months of training, the gators managed to turn the treadmill to the tune of about 1 mile an hour for up to four minutes.
So they tried angle 2: Birds are direct descendants of dinos (so they say), so let's take a chicken, grow it (by computer program) to dino size, and see what it can do. The results: their muscle mass would be hard pressed to allow them to WALK at dino size. Conclusion, if T-Rex could run, we have no idea how he did it.
Coming soon- we will manufact- er, find evidence that gravity was much weaker in the late Triassic and early Cretaceous Eras...
JEEZ, ALL YA GOTTA DO IS SHOW SOME SKIN... So they're now trying to find a way to predict which new model will be fashion's next success. Okay, I can see how that might be important to Ralph Lauren and the in-crowd, and maybe I could see Indiana University (yes, my alma mater) getting involved in the research. But how to you figure that the two main sponsors of said study were the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, who kicked in $2 million, and the NSF, who put in $920,000.
MORE STUFF TO LEARN FROM CHIMPS: NIH and NSF, chipped in $350,000 to see if humans and chimps were similar in being able to play video games. Faced with a video maze to find their way through, 4 adult chimps, four adult humans and 12 kids were tested- with the kids and the chimps doing the best, and a chimp named Panzee (gee, how'd they come up with THAT one?) took home first prize. The tests were over several days and skill levels, and sometimes the chimps had to be bribed with "the universal favorite, M&Ms" to "work".
In another study, NIH kicked out over $1 million on several studies into the contagiousness of yawning. They found that chimps would even yawn when shown a video of cartoon characters yawning. And what do we learn from this? “Understanding how chimpanzees connect with animations, to both empathize and imitate, may help us to understand how humans do the same.”
Yawn.
THE SELF-FULFILLING FB PROPHECY... NSF blew half a million bucks trying to determine whether Facebook is addictive. Based on a study of 5,000 volunteers by Cornell, the research team came up with "four factors that could indicate an addiction to FB"- and you'll LOVE the first one:
1- You BELIEVE FB is addictive...
2- You use FB "to create an impression" (of yourself, I guess...)
3- You are in a bad mood... (WTF? I'm in a bad mood, thus I am addicted to FB? So if you're in a good mood you're addicted to porn?)
and 4- You do not use other social media.
Thankfully, I also use Twitter, so I'm safe. But is FB an addiction?
However, the researchers concede the data used for this study “are not the result of a purposeful, designed social scientific study” and have limitations. In other words, it's about as trustworthy as, say, a FB meme.
WE TOLD YOU IT WAS A SICKNESS: $2 1/2 million by NSF and NIH to determine if Liberal beliefs were genetic or societal. Really? Okay, let's play along. What did they find?
Social scientists believe there is an association between liberal ideology and the 7R variant of the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4), but only among those who had a larger number of friendships during adolescents. “It is important to note,” the authors caution, “that the 7R allele by itself does not make a person liberal and neither does simply having a greater number of friends as a teenager. Additionally, the 7R allele does not cause an individual to have more friends, and twin studies have shown that the number of friends one names is not significantly heritable. Rather, it is the crucial interaction of two factors—the genetic predisposition of having a greater number of 7R alleles and the environmental condition of having many friends in adolescence—that is associated with being more liberal.”
In less technical speak, apparently they found that you need both a dopey gene and dopey friends in adolescence. Or something like that.
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Wow, there's a bunch more of these to go! Tune in next time when we find out which has more hairs- a grey squirrel or a bumblebee! (No lie!)
No, this is not a Memorial Day post. There are plenty of vets and families of fallen soldiers who can do a better job than I on that. No, my story is letting you in on the rest of our holiday weekend such as it was.
Sunday, Scrappy and I attempted another picnic, this time at Shoaff Park. No need for food porn-just variations on the last. Our problem was one thing in two dimensions- 1) it was QUITE hot out, and the mosquitos are arrived; 2) our AC went out yesterday, and home was currently less-than-inhabitable until maintenance showed. Thus, we tried the park. But first, I had loaded up the bird feeder...
...and a rather odd bird soon appeared...
"All right with the pictures- and the dog! I'll come back when you LEAVE!"
Which we did, but man it was hot...
...so hot, the FISH were hiding in the shade!
That orange chap was my boss, getting in shape for that silly Ironman business. He was somewhat past his 12-mile mark for the morning here.
This spot was a bit cooler, not horribly buggy, but Mr. Boy wanted so bad to go around the big circle. He'd have never made it. So I loaded him back up and we went for a drive until the race started- and we got home just as the maintenance guy finished. He brought in a package as well.
Those of you who went with me through the FB end of the Friday night debauch heard that I discovered the Monkees had put out a brand-new 50th anniversary lp, and somehow I managed to order it for Laurie. At the time I said, this will be the lp of Summer 2016- and I stand by that. Stand by for Monkees on the M10, possibly this week, and throughout the summer!
Anyway, after my guy in the Indy 500 came in 2nd, the A's dropped the Tigers again, and my boy in Nascar won the Charlotte 600-Martin Truex leading 588 out of 600 laps! -we ventured outside again to observe the three planet show going on. And while I did manage one non-shaky picture of Mars and Saturn-
...my Jovian efforts came up a bit short.
Flash to Monday, where I have the brilliant idea of going to Fox Island... at least, the mosquitos thought it was brilliant....
That was the one picture I snapped in the nature preserve before I feared that the skeeters might fly it away. I saw a bunny at one point, and turned to see if Laurie saw it- and all I saw was Laurie's arms and a swarm! Didn't we have bug repellant? Sure! The first spraying cut the attack from thousands to hundreds, and the second cut it from hundreds to dozens! Eventually we fought our way to the beach...
But for a wildlife excursion, all we have to show for it is the bunny and a couple of tiny toads...
(Approximately life-size)
Afterwards, I had the next bright idea, which was to go to Rural King. I had to call upon Bobby G.'s better half to help me remember the name of the place, which she then amplified on FB-
Helpful reminder
-and after stopping off for noon buffet at the nearby Pizza Hut, we ventured inside, where the first highway was getting my long awaited bag of Larry the Cable Guy's Biscuit'n'gravy chips, but the best part was chick football:
You see, this tub of chicks- prolly about 100 of 'em- had this little bitty piece of plastic fragment. And one would get the damn thing, and take off with it, closely pursued by as many as were paying attention. They would literally gang tackle the "ball carrier", the "ball" would change hands- er, beaks- a half-dozen times, until someone on the outside of the dogpile would get loose and run away until he in turn was gang tackled, jumping over would be tacklers and bystanders with all the grace of a drunken baboon. On second thought, this was more like chick rugby. Whatever, it made the day and occupied us for ten minutes or so.
And that, less these last few hours, was our Memorial weekend. How was yours?
Listening to a sermon on Elijah facing down the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18) I realized a few simple lessons:
BLAME WHERE BLAME IS DUE: The backstory is that God through Elijah has called down a three-year-long drought at this point. Why? Because the people had followed King Ahab in following his witch-wife Jezebel in worshipping Baal. And for three years, Elijah had been a virtual ghost while Israel suffered. Now he had returned, and this king that supposedly believed in the fertility god who wasn't being very fertile, his first words to Elijah were, "Is that really you, the troublemaker of Israel?" So, instead of recognizing the true factors of the drought- the power of God and the sinfulness of man, Ahab blamed it all on the man who pointed that truth OUT to him. Thus is the battle with atheists and agnostics today.
A good friend (who may or may not read Sunday Message, IDK) recently liked a meme that purported to show the one-to-one correlation between "the world's least religious countries" and "the world's least violent countries". While I could dispute the veracity of the data, I really don't need to. It is always easier to defeat these ideas by pointing out that the "logic" they so love to apply they refuse to apply to the concept of God. In this case, if you logically look at what the existence of God WOULD mean, one thing it would mean is Satan wouldn't have to work so hard where there is no faith. Thus proving the point they seek to overthrow. The same way, Ahab blamed the man who served a God he no longer believed in for causing his problems. If Baal were god and God is not, then why the drought?
SO, WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOD? I have often had the discussion of "If there IS a God, then why..." with unbelievers. And whatever it takes as its form, right down to "I can't believe in a god that demands faith without proof", it rolls downhill to one concept- they cannot conceive a being so far above them that they cannot apply their motivations to Him. They think God should be like Elijah teased the prophets that Baal was. "And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, "Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened." " God does not think, or react, or judge, as I do- therefore he cannot exist, so their excuses go. But God is BIGGER than us- a LOT bigger. A paraphrase of a John Adams quote says that it is not only foolishness but wickedness for "ants" like us to contemplate all that God is. Now a moody, lustful, adulterous god like Zeus- or Baal- is better for them because a) he's "just like us" thus easy to understand, and b) he does all the sinful crap that WE do, and thus wouldn't DREAM of judging us.
THEN HOW SHOULD WE DEAL WITH GOD? Well, when you strip down Elijah's actions, he: 1- depended on God's protection- he wasn't found for three years, but was provided for in Zarephath all that time;
2- was obedient, coming to the people when God deemed the time was right;
3- was sacrificial in a way that TRULY was a sacrifice- at a time when water was worth more than gold, he had 12 barrels of it dumped upon the altar of God, knowing God would soon replace it;
4- was prayerful- praying intently SEVEN times for the ending of the drought.
BUT THEN, ELIJAH HAD TO RUN AWAY, RIGHT? WHERE WAS GOD THEN? Ask rather, where was Elijah then? You see, Elijah had such faith in God, he stood in a battle that was 450-to-one against him as if he were not alone- and he was right. But after, perhaps he listened to his sound bites a bit too much and within a few days was praying, " With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant: they have thrown down thy altars, they have slain thy prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away." Oh, alone, were you? God answered him, "But I still have 7,000 people in Israel whose knees have not knelt to worship Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him." When Elijah thought he was outnumbered 450-to-1, he actually outnumbered them about 96-to-1. Lesson here, you are NEVER outnumbered with God, and you should act in acknowledgement of that fact. Thus it was that the writer of Hebrews said,
Therefore since we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right of the throne of God.
In other words, don't fight the battle as if you are alone, fight it as if an army stands beside you- because it does.
Finally, there is a song I have been trying to get on the M10 that just hasn't quite fought its way in yet, that goes as a perfect ending to this.
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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