So True, So True...

Ben Sargent 7/25/08

How Many Superheroes Does It Take to Tire a Genre?

“The Dark Knight,” “Iron Man” and “Hancock” test the limits of the superhero film. (In times of economic distress, people long for saviors, and fictional superheroes will do in a pinch.)

read more | digg story

One of the Things I Love About the Interweb!

I love when little ironies--perhaps intentional, perhaps not--pop out on the internet. For instance, here's a screen shot of a page I was looking at earlier on the New York Times website. You'll see that it's an Op-Ed piece referencing T. Boone Pickens's branding as "totally misleading" the GOP's cherished notion that the answer to today's high gas prices is "more drilling." It's fun that Pickens is one of the driving forces behind George W. Bush's ascendence to the White House, but that's not the ironic part. The irony lies in the placement of the ad directly to the right of the column, i.e.:

Yes, right next to the line that says "we can’t drill our way to lower gas prices" is an ad from "the people of America's Oil and Natural Gas Industry."

I didn't click the ad, but my guess is that "the people of," etc., aren't saying we can't drill our way out of the current state of affairs.

Gotta love it.

Promises, Promises

Some little while back I wrote about e-mail sent to me by Sprint upon my completing a customer satisfaction survey for them. In the survey I reported, truthfully, that I was dissatisfied with the results of an e-mail inquiry I had made of them previously (indeed, the survey was a "how are we doing?" follow-up to my e-mail query). (I wrote about that experience, too.) Anyhow, what they had to say at the time was this:

Thank you for responding to our survey. We are sorry to learn that you have an unresolved issue as your satisfaction is very important to us.

A Sprint representative will contact you via your PCS phone at no charge, within 3 business days to assist you.

Please do not respond to this email. If you have any questions please contact Customer Service or visit one of our websites:

http://www.sprint.com or http://www.sprintpcs.com

As previously reported, that e-mail came to me on May 15. Today is July 23. No message from Sprint, via PCS phone, e-mail, snail mail, or homing pigeon, these past two months.

File that under Don't Make Promises...

Anyhow, last night I happened to be in the Verizon store as my daughter had her phone attended to. She's already made the switch, obviously, and seems to be happy as all get-out with their service. (I should have pulled out my phone to see what sort of coverage I had in the Verizon store.) Anyhow, I've already packed our bags mentally as far as abandoning Sprint...after something like ten years. It's not as amusing as you might think to be in a public place passing the time watching other folks chat away on their cell phones while mine is doggedly Looking for Service. And since both my son and I do a fair amount of texting--often with one another--it's also a treat to see what the next phone bill has in store overage-charges-wise. (That issue, you may recall, was the genesis of my original e-mail to Sprint, the one that got responded to but not answered, which triggered the customer-satisfaction survey, which generated the above-mentioned e-mail, which did not produce the promised phone call, which lived in the house that Jack built.

But I digress.

It turns out that two of our three Sprint contracts expire in February, with the third ending the following October. That's a bit longer than I'd like to dally, but I'm unenthusiastic about spending money to get out of this indentured servitude. So it occurs to my to try a radical approach:

Ask them.

No kidding. I'm mentally drafting a nice, polite, even friendly letter to, say, the CEO of Sprint/Nextel. Something along this line:

Look, I've been a customer of Sprint for something on the order of ten years. If you haven't made a profit on me by now, you never will. On the whole I haven't been hugely dissatisfied with Sprint--it clearly was the best game in town when I first signed up--but lately it's been losing ground, at least in my area. Coverage isn't good. Calls are frequently dropped. Indeed, I was sitting at my desk on the second-floor of my centrally located home, chatting with my aunt, when suddenly I was talking to myself when the phone lost its signal. And then I had to wait for it to regain its senses, go into Analog Roam, and then finally find a digital signal again. Not good. Anyhow, with this and that my family and I are, as the song has it, already gone. We're not renewing the contracts as they expire. Given that--and given that two of our lines runs out in February--how about we agree to an amicable split? Let us out of our contract and we'll go try somebody else. No hard feelings. There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy; there's only you and me and we just disagree.

Yeah, I know: I might as well go talk to the side of the Sprint/Nextel headquarters building. But you never know. Might be worth a stamp. Stay tuned for further developments.

Who Pays? Who Doesn't?

As Bob is my witless, I will never know why people say things like this (from yesterday's edition of the local rag):

In her letter in the July 9 Argus Leader, Lorri May praised Sen. Tim Johnson for voting to tax the windfall profits of the U.S. oil companies. Hello! Corporations do not pay taxes. They just pass the tax increase on to you and me with higher prices.

And so on. This is not the first person I've encountered who seems to have studied economics on the Bizarro World. Nor, I suppose with a sigh, will he be the last. Nevertheless, I posted the following pithy rejoinder to the rag's website:

So if we rely on this kind of muddled "logic," we would conclude that corporations also "don't pay" electric bills, water bills, phone bills, insurance, etc., etc....they just "pass it on to you and me with higher prices." Hello! Corporations most certainly DO pay taxes, and all of the above. (Except when they dodge their tax responsibilities by moving off-shore.) Does some of it get "passed along"? Of course! That's how the economy works.

I might have added that it's simple-minded to imply, as do the letter-writer and his ilk do, that the entire tax burden automatically is passed along to the consumer. That's ludicrous. If any corporation raised the price of its goods or services that much in one fell swoop, it would soon find itself bleeding customers. And it needn't be taxes, although that's the favorite bete noire of the right-wingnut crowd: The same is true if, say, the price for hand soap in the bathrooms: Someone gets the fun task of deciding whether and how much of the expense can/should be absorbed in the form of higher prices, and how much can/should be absorbed from profits. The idea that if Conglomeroid Company has to pay a dollar in taxes it will raise its rates to get back that dollar is addled.

I am similarly amused/amazed/annoyed by the various business types who warn against any proposed increase in minimum wages because it will "force" them to increase their prices or lay off workers or sacrifice a virgin over an active volcano or whatever the issue is supposed to be. Again, it's only their having to pay workers that will cause their business to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy...it's never the price of the goods and services they must buy in order to do business. (Damn that Abraham Lincoln for ending slavery! Just another example of the government butting in and crippling the small-business owner! They should let The Market decide what wages should be paid. If any.)

But now that the minimum wage has gone up, well, it develops that it wasn't such a big deal after all. This too from the daily rag:

Minimum wage hike won't have big effect
Many Sioux Falls jobs already pay more

South Dakota's minimum wage Thursday will rise 70 cents to $6.55 an hour, but it appears the increase will have little effect on most Sioux Falls businesses.

The South Dakota Department of Labor estimates that of Sioux Falls' 132,000 workers, only about 3,900 or 3 percent will be affected by the latest increase in the minimum wage.

Um...what?

No pandemonium? No rampage in the streets? Not even a little one?

Well, I could hardly let that pass unnoticed (obviously), so I posted this to Hearing Voices or In Your Voice or The Voice in My Head or whatever they call the comments section:

Golly...when the new minimum was being discussed awhile back, we were assured by several local businesspeople that it would be the end of civilization as we know if it they were "forced" to pay a semi-decent wage. Now we're told that it "won't have big effect" because "many Sioux Falls jobs already pay more." It's almost as if the sky wasn't really in danger of falling after all!

Personally, I'm of the opinion that a business, large or small, that "can't afford" to adequately pay its workers doesn't deserve to stay in business. Isn't that the way of The Market that we're all supposed to bow down and worship?

Cities, Customers Launch "Save Our Starbucks" Effort

From WSJ.com:

Starbucks' disclosure of the 600 locations it wants to shutter has given rise to a phenomenon: the Save Our Starbucks campaign. Across the nation, customers and city officials are pleading with the coffee giant to change its mind.

read more

As I said when I posted this on Digg:

Since none of my local Starbucks is on the endangered list, I know this is easy for me to say, but still: It's just a coffee shop!!

Irony

Tobacco 'could help treat cancer'

The tobacco plant may provide a cheap vaccine factory

The tobacco plant - responsible for millions of cancer cases - may actually offer the means to treat one form of the disease, a study suggests.

Read the article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7517799.stm

Trust Issues

At this moment, AccuWeather.com tells me that the current temperature in my locale is 84°F with a RealFeel® of 87°F. But Weather.com says it's 85°F and "feels like" 85°F. Whom to believe?

30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth

The images were taken at the turn of the Millennium, when NASA’s scientists had a brilliant idea: to scan through 400,000 images taken by the Landsat 7 satellite and display only the most the most beautiful. A handful of the best were painstakingly chosen and then displayed at the Library of Congress in 2000.

read more | digg story

Aw, Shucks

So I took this Personal DNA test ("Your True Self Revealed!"), and it turns out I'm a Generous Idealist. So my "swatch" looks like this:




For what that may be worth. It says I'm supposed to be able to mouse over the various colored patches to reveal what they mean, but it doesn't seem to work for me. That's probably not a good thing. On the other hand, I should imagine there are worse things to be than a Generous Idealist.

Here's what they have to say about me. Trust me, I'm blushing.

You are an Idealist

As an IDEALIST, you are distinctive for your integration of confidence, imagination, willingness to explore, and desire for competence over style.

You have a strong capacity to comprehend the inner workings of things, finding new ideas and innovative insights to feed your curious nature.

You are quite comfortable in the realm of abstract thought. You don't need a practical solution to every one of life's questions.

You are comfortable with the decisions you make in life. You don't need to second-guess yourself, or seek a lot of opinions before you make up your mind.

You enjoy the routines that you have created in your life, and don't feel the need to shake things up just for the sake of change.

You generally succeed at what you do, and others would describe you as successful.

It is important to you that products be efficient – looking good has to come second to working well.

You aren't the kind of person who needs to collect stylish items in an attempt to create an attractive environment – you know that what matters most is function, not style.

You're not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you're generally considerate of others' feelings as well.

You prefer to have time to plan for things, feeling better with a schedule than with keeping plans up in the air until the last minute.

You do your own thing when it comes to clothing, guided more by practical concerns than by other people's notions of style.


You are Generous

Your awareness of those around you, along with your nuanced perceptions of the world at large, makes you the GENEROUS person that you are.

You value time to yourself and understand how rich your private world can be—you know that you don't have to go wild to have a good time.

You are excited and energized by ideas and often enjoy things more through observation than through experience.

This tendency gives you an appreciation for different perspectives and opinions about the world.

Being as aware of others as you are doesn't mean you find it easy to trust them immediately—this is something that happens more slowly for you.

Despite this, you are aware of the complexities of many situations and are reluctant to pass judgments on others.

Although you have fewer friendships than some people, those that you have are meaningful and are important to you.

You value spending time alone—it is while reflecting on the world around you that you often learn something new about yourself or begin to understand something that's been bothering you.

Shucks. Of course, it does occur to me that a lot of the above is simply parroting back to me what I told them in the course of their quiz, but at least I can place a high premium on its accuracy.

And Said As Much

It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

Regular readers of this chronicle know that I am inordinately fond of collecting quotations, from many sources but most frequently these days from the excellent newsletter A Word A Day. I allow them to pile up on the hard drive, then occasionally assemble them here for your amusement, and mine.

In crafting this batch, however, I came to reflect on why I enjoy collecting quotations and aphorism. I had never thought on that before. I suppose it has to do with something that someone said which somehow resonates...the above quotation from Ingersoll, for instance. Even as a lad, I thought that the idea of God creating creatures whose function was to obey him seemed--to use a phrase that I find myself employing quite often anymore--insulting to God. I recall from childhood catechism lessons the old Q and A:

"Why was I created?"


"I was created to love God with my whole heart, my whole mind, and my whole soul."

Indeed, it's one of the few things I do remember from those days, perhaps because even as I occupied a desk at good old St. Joan of Arc School, I thought that seemed a little odd. Could it really be that God is so small that he brought the whole of creation into existence solely so that it can tell him how great he is? That seems more a human attribute than a godly one, no?

As I ponder my attraction to quotations, and the sort of quotations to which I am attracted, I find that they seem to fall into three broad categories:

1. Religion and Morality
2. Hypocrisy and Morality
3. Humor, often involving Religion, Hypocrisy, and Morality


How can one better magnify the Almighty than by sniggering with him at his little jokes, particularly the poorer ones. -Samuel Beckett, author (1906-1989)

Just so. As often as not, "Humor" really should be rendered "Irony" or "Cynicism":

Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels but they live like men. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

In the main, I guess, the quotations have to do with The Human Condition, whatever exactly that is.

It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all. -James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)

I think too that there is some solace, some feeling that one is less alone, upon discovering that someone else--even 100 or 1,000 years ago--looked at things and saw them differently than those around him. And said as much.

---

There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor. -George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)


Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)


The louder he talks of honour, the faster we count our spoons. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


Who knows what Columbus would have discovered if America hadn't got in the way. -Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)


The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world. -Vikram Chandra,novelist (b. 1961)
Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East- to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them- who were above such trifling. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. -Steven Wright, comedian (b. 1955)


There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else. -General Peyton C. March (1864-1955)


The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. -M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author (1936-2005)


Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet. -Roger Miller, musician (1936-1992)


This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers. -Terry Tempest Williams, naturalist and author (b. 1955)


Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in. -Sam Harris, author (1967- )

---

If You Can't Trust 'em on the Small Things...

So I end up at CBSNews.com, by way of clicking a link on Google News. The subject in question is "Filming the Dark Knight," which is all well and good. But then I click on the "Related" link, The Dark Knight, and thence to the timeline, "Caped Crusader Chronology."

And the first thing I note is that the timeline, when I get there, is in fact titled "Cape Crusader Chronology." Not "caped." This on both the page itself and in the title bar. It bodes not well. But I plunge on.

I'm basically okay for the first couple of decades. Not bothering to go and check dates and so on; things seem as right as they need to be. Of course, the timeline perpetuates the old fiction that young Bob Kane one day sat down and created Batman all by his lonesome, but of course that canard is so well integrated into the mythos that it's nearly impossible to give poor old Bill Finger his due as virtual co-creator of the character.

But when I get to May 1964, I about lose it:

Batman turns 25 and Kane considers killing off the character due to a drop in sales. Instead, the Dark Knight gets a "New Look" in Detective Comics # 327. The makeover by editor Julius Schwartz includes an updated Batmobile and the addition of the yellow ellipse behind the costume's Bat-insignia.

Kane considers killing him off? I think it's been pretty well documented that certainly by 1964 Kane's involvement with the character consisted primarily of cashing his royalty checks. Somewhere--I think in the excellent book Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones--there's an anecdote of a kid showing Kane the comic book that introduced the "new look" Batman (and also the first Batman book that did not include the "Bob Kane" signature) and noting Kane's surprise at both the new design and his missing byline. So I hardly think Kane considered pulling the plug on the character--or ever would consider killing the golden goose--or had any legal standing to do so if it did enter his head.

Skeptism sensors activated!

Next, it's a little odd that the "chronology" goes from May 1964 to May 1966 to January 12, 1966, and then to 1966. Ordinarily I expect a "chronology" to be you know, chronological, and the last time I looked May 1966 should come after January 12 1966. And why is 1966 hanging there all alone? The reference is to the movie Batman, with Adam West and Burt Ward, and you'd think that an organization with the resources of CBS News might have been able to dig up the release date. (October 5, if you're interested.)

Forging ahead, I come to Feb. - June 1986, and read:

Frank Miller's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" hits shelves, featuring an aged Batman of the future. It is considered a pioneer of the comic book industry and reinforces the darker, modern Batman.

No objection...except one wonders how The Dark Knight Returns can be a "pioneer" of a 50-year-old industry...

And so on. A few more minor quibbles--why not give the release dates, or at least the months, for Batman Returns, Batman: Gotham Knight, and The Dark Knight? But by then I've largely lost interest in the "chonology," having determined that CBS News decided it wasn't worth taking much pains with, which causes me to wonder why I should care either.

But one always does wonder: If a news organization is sloppy with small, unimportant details, what makes me think they're any more conscientious or accurate with the big, important stories?

Irony

This via MadConomist.com:

Man Wants To Change His Name To 'Fuck Censorship'. Judge Says 'No'.


Submitted by Dmitri Davydov on Mon, 2008-06-30 10:43.
Posted in: Statistics And Other Lies
Link of the day - Free $50 Kmart card.

SANTA FE, N.M. - A New Mexico appeals court on Friday ruled against a Los Alamos man who wanted to change his name to a phrase containing a popular four-letter obscenity.

The man appealed after a state district judge in Bernalillo County refused his request to change his name to "F--- Censorship!"

read more...

Irony. Gotta love it.

Getting Closer...

Apple's dopily named MobileMe is sort-of up and running--the mail interface is nice, but much of the rest of it is, apparently, still to come. Meanwhile, a visitation to the old mac.com address produces the following, slightly different from yesterday's message:


So we remain in wait-and-see mode, since, really, what are our options?

Leaving Us to Wonder What "Scheduled" Means

I have as yet been unable to access the reconstructed .Mac website, now known as MobileMe. Which is an even dopier name than dot-Mac was. Trying to access my dot-Mac account produces this:
That "scheduled maintenance" part slays me: So Apple planned to have both the old and the new service unavailable on the big roll-out day?!

Some users have reported being able to log in, only to be booted out in short order; others have reported being able to access some but not all of the services. Me, I only see this when I visit the MobileMe website, whose address is me.com (see above in re dopiness):


It's a little sadistic to allow us to check out the swell features MobileMe promises without our being able to actually log in and use them, no?

Meanwhile, my e-mail--which is mostly what I use mac.com for--seems to be working, albeit pokily.

The best-laid plans, I guess...

---

FISA Fight: Just Another Epic Failure in America's History

Today is going to go down as a dark day in our nation's history, as the Senate completes its total capitulation to the Bush administration and its corporate masters, through passing legislation that dramatically expands the government's surveillance powers and immunizes the companies responsible for illegally spying on us.

read more | digg story

Once again, I'm experimenting a bit with the "blog it" button on Digg. Works pretty slick, as you can tell from the above as well as the previous post. (Well, actually, how could you tell that it works pretty slick? Guess you just have to take my word for it.) I think it could do a better job of indicating the item's origins--there's nothing up above there that tells you that the item is in fact by Martin Bosworth, not yours truly, as published in The Huffington Post. You're required to click through a read the whole article, which a lot of blog-skimmers won't do. That should be addressed. Also, it would be nice if Digg gave one the ability to add commentary to an item as he or she posted it to the blog. But I know they're looking at the blogging experience in a different way than I am.

Naturally I'm pretty peeved about how the Senate acted on FISA. I'm disappointed in my senior Senator, Tim Johnson. (Not disappointed in junior Senator John Thune: I knew all along he'd play his usual role of White House dittohead.) I'm disappointed in Barack Obama. Mostly, I'm disappointed in the system, which now leaves me no alternative except disappointment.

After all, what are my choices here? Shall I be ticked off at Tim Johnson and say, Well, that's it, then, I'll vote for the right-winger that the local GOP has propped up to run against him? Hah. Likewise for Obama: I'd've liked it a lot better had he not joined into the mass capitulation to the White House (latest in a series), but I can hardly envision myself ever voting for McCain. So I'm annoyed at the both of them, but they still get my vote.

I have decided, as a result of yesterday's roll-over-and-play-dead in the Senate, that I will no longer contribute to Tim Johnson's reelection campaign. To date I have made no contribution to Obama's campaign, and I shall think long and hard before I do so. It's not much, I grant you, but I believe that their actions should have some consequence, however minuscule.

Note that the idea of not voting doesn't enter the picture. (Well, except for now.) Let's not kid ourselves: To not vote for X is to cast a vote for Y, no matter how many times you say it isn't. As unhappy as I am right now with Senators Johnson and Obama, I'm unwilling to help hand their respective elections to the other guys.

Although, truth to tell, there's a part of me that says it would serve 'em right.

---

True Patriotism: An Independence Day Reflection

Conservatives believe it’s easy to be a patriot; liberals know why it’s sometimes hard. It’s not hard because America is a bad place or because it’s not easy to love one’s country. It’s hard because being a true patriot means we must elevate reason over base emotions, tamp down our worst impulses and always remember that our Constitution is more than mere words on paper.

read more | digg story

Giving Christianity a Bad Name

As if God doesn’t already have enough on his plate, his so-called friends are busy burning up bandwidth with such twaddle as that reproduced below, which entered my inbox this morning. To make matters worse, it comes from a minister of my acquaintance…who, you would think, should know better. You would think so wrongly, as it happens.

I hereby spare you the torture of reading it in the original form, which necessitated endless scrolling and squinting against ill-advised color schemes. (Hint: Red type on a black background is to be avoided.) I haven’t corrected the punctuation and other oddities (“the ex-vocalist of the AC/DC”), either. Nor have I made the slightest attempt to verify whether “these facts” are indeed facts.

---

DID YOU KNOW THESE FACTS?

I SURE DIDNT TILL NOW

Death is certain but the Bible speaks about untimely death!

Make a personal reflection about this.....

Very interesting, read until the end.....

It is written in the Bible (Galatians 6:7):

'Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sow, that shall he also reap.

Here are some men and women who mocked God:

John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during his interview with an American Magazine, he said:'Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about that. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple, today we are more famous than Him' (1966).

Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.


Tancredo Neves (President of Brazil ):
During the Presidential campaign, he said if he got 500,000 votes from his party, not even God would remove him from Presidency.

Sure he got the votes, but he got sick a day before being made President, then he died.


Cazuza (Bi-sexual Brazilian composer, singer and poet):
During A show in Canecio ( Rio de Janeiro ), while smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the air and said: 'God, that's for you.'

He died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER in a horrible manner.


The man who built the Titanic
After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked him how safe the Titanic would be.

With an ironic tone he said:

'Not even God can sink it'

The result: I think you all know what happened to the Titanic


Marilyn Monroe (Actress)
She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show.

He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her.

After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said:

'I don't need your Jesus'.

A week later, she was found dead in her apartment


Bon Scott (Singer)
The ex-vocalist of the AC/DC. On one of his 1979 songs he sang:

'Don't stop me; I'm going down all the way, down the highway to hell'.

On the 19th of February 1980, Bon Scott was found dead, he had been choked by his own vomit.


Campinas (IN 2005)
In Campinas , Brazil a group of friends, drunk, went to pick up a friend.....

The mother accompanied her to the car and was so worried about the drunkenness of her friends and she said to the daughter holding her hand, who was already seated in the car:

'My Daughter, Go With God And May He Protect You.'

She responded: 'Only If He (God) Travels In The Trunk, Cause Inside Here.....It's Already Full '

Hours later, news came by that they had been involved in a fatal accident, everyone had died, the car could not be recognized what type of car it had been, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact.

The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained intact. To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was broken


Christine Hewitt (Jamaican Journalist and entertainer)
said the Bible (Word of God) was the worst book ever written.

In June 2006 she was found burnt beyond recognition in her motor vehicle.


Many more important people have forgotten that there is no other name that was given so much authority as the name of Jesus.

Many have died, but only Jesus died and rose again, and he is still alive.

'Jesus'I have done my part, Jesus said

'If you are embarrassed about me,

I will also be embarrassed about you before my father.''

Lord, I love you and I need you, come into my heart, and bless me, my family, my home, and my friends, in Jesus' name. Amen.'

---

Oh my.

As usual, one wonders where to begin. First off, the whole thing is pretty damn insulting to God, for it all boils down to “If God gets mad at you he’s gonna kill you.” Worse, in the case of “the man who built the Titanic,” God kills dozens of people and terrifies hundreds because he’s mad at one guy.

I don’t know what you think of God, but as is so often the case it appears that I have a higher opinion of him than some of those who make a big deal about how Godly they are.

(It’s really quite astonishing to think that this was being promulgated by an ordained minister of a “real” denomination, and not prefaced with anything along the lines of “Can you believe the hokum some people send around?” One wonders what sort of things are being taught in their seminaries.)

It’s also difficult to see why God would be so upset with John Lennon. I don’t think Lennon was mocking God. I think Lennon decried what he perceived as the Beatles’ insane popularity, and the public’s insistence on hanging on everything the Beatles said or did.

Also, it’s playing a little fast-and-loose with the facts to say, “Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.” Lennon's murder came nearly 15 years later. As my old debate coach was wont to say, “Your causal link is a little casual.” But in my experience, “Christians” don’t mind jettisoning the truth in order to make their point. Assuming that God is really that thin-skinned, why would he wait so long to smite someone who “mocked” him?

I have no idea whether the Billy Graham-Marilyn Monroe anecdote is true, but let's say it is. How, exactly, is her statement "mocking" anything or anyone? She is made to say she doesn't need Jesus. Okay. You may believe she was wrong, but to be mistaken is not to be mocking. And, again, it seems to be a little insulting toward the Creator, for it pretty much casts him in the role of saying, "Well, okay, I sent this guy to preach to her one time and she wouldn't listen, so ba-zip! off with her head." Wow. I had the impression that Jesus instructed his disciples to have more perseverance than that, but apparently not.

And all of this begs one big, fat, bug-eyed question: What about people who don’t “mock” God (no matter how fast-and-loosely you define “mock”)? I mean, everybody dies, no? And some very good, very devout people die ghastly deaths. So what’s up with that? The anonymous author of this pretty un-Christian piece of drivel would have us believe that those who “mock” God will die a horrible death. I happen to think that God’s got a stronger ego than that, but for the sake of argument let’s go with it. You mock God, you get smote or smitten or whatever the past tense of smite is. But that would imply that those who don’t mock God don’t get smote—don’t get murdered, don’t get cancer, don’t die of drug overdoses—and, well, sorry, but that just ain’t true. And I’d be willing to bet that plenty of people who do “mock” God—again, whatever that may mean—live long healthy lives and die peacefully in their sleep at the ripe old age of 89.

In short, it doesn’t work that way. God—any god worthy of the proper-noun status—is bigger than that. He must be, or he wouldn’t be worth discussing. And I submit that any religion that holds--as this bit of balderdash certainly implies—that you have to be real careful not to tick God off lest he send a lightning bolt your way isn’t religion at all but mere superstition.

It’s what I call Great Pumpkin Theology. You remember that bit from “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” where Linus, in the pumpkin patch awaiting the Great Pumpkin’s arrival, promises Charlie Brown or Sally or somebody to put in a good word for them if the Great Pumpkin arrives. And then he panics, for he said if. “I mean when! …I'm doomed! One little mistake like that can cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by.”

Well, I am of the opinion that a good many “godly” people are in fact thinking of the Great Pumpkin.

And isn’t that a form of mockery?

Happy Second of July!

I posted this two years ago, and thought it fun enough to recycle. Happy Second of July!

---

On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote this to his wife, Abigail:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore."

Well, he had the "pomp and parade" bit right, even if he was off by two days. As you may remember from History class, July 2, 1776, is the date that the Second Continental Congress passed Lee's Resolution, declaring the colonies to be independent of Britain. So you might say that today, not this Tuesday, is the 230th anniversary of US independence. Or you might, as I do, say that this is something worth celebrating twice.

Let us hope, on this commemoration of freedom, that the United States might continue to be truly the land of liberty, dedicated to the ideals of its own Constitution, ever resistant to the tyranny of those who would impose their opinions and beliefs on others, a genuine defender of all freedoms, an exemplar for the rest of the world. And let us hope that everyone enjoys a safe and happy Independence Day...or two!

The Vision Thing

A little while ago I sent this off to almost everybody in my address book (excluding a few that I knew I had entertained with the story already, and a few whom I knew wouldn't give a rip). It seems worth putting here, too:

The Vision Thing
Some of you have heard this story--sorry about that; nobody likes summer reruns. However, it seems important to send to just about everybody, even if that means some repeats. (I'm sending this to about everybody in my address book, which is something I seldom do.)

About a month ago I noticed something "different" in the vision field of my left eye. I have always had many "floaters," more pronounced in the left eye, and scarcely even noticed them after 51 years. But now there was something different among the familiar old patterns, a couple of little blips that moved, jumpily, as my eye moved...unlike the floaters, which tend to go their own little ways. I determined to keep an eye on it. No pun intended.

That was on a Saturday. On Monday, at the movies with my son, I noted a flash of light in my left eye when I glanced toward him at one point. So of course I spent some time looking left-right-left to see if I could duplicate the feat. I did, a couple of times, though not every time.

That evening the pattern of floaters was different from the old familiar picture, and they seemed thicker.

Off to UrgentCare. The doctor there couldn't see anything amiss, and recommended that I hie on in to an emergency room if things persisted or worsened.

No change the next day, Tuesday, but I brought it to the attention of my family doctor at a previously made appointment. He sent me to an ophthalmologist.

On Wednesday at the ophthalmologist, I was informed that I had a tear in the retina and the vitreous had "collapsed," which sounded pretty awful but which seemed to bother the MDs less than the tear. The doctor I visited sent me down the hall to a retina specialist who confirmed the diagnosis and wheeled in the laser gear for, as he put it, some "spot-welding."

Well, all's well that ends well, as they say. A week later I re-visited the clinic, and the doctor was very pleased with how things were looking. No pun intended. I'll go back in a couple of weeks for another follow-up. From my side of the eyeball, the vision in that eye is back to normal, though the floaters aren't. I imagine I now have a new pattern of them that I'll have to spend the next 50 years getting used to.

The moral of the story is this: If you EVER notice anything suddenly different about your vision, get it checked immediately. A torn retina is a big deal, but a less-big deal than a detached retina, which would have been the next thing had I ignored my symptoms. (The torn retina was treated in the exam room with a portable laser unit. Uncomfortable, but not horribly painful. A detached retina would have required big-time surgery. After the "spot-welding" I drove myself home, and there were no restrictions on my activities. Such would not be so with a detached retina.)

As with so many other things in the medical realm, speed is everything. If you ever experience sudden visual changes or disturbances, don't wait for it to "go away." It probably will, but it will be replaced by something worse.

Consider yourself warned!