Location: Surreality, Have Fun Will Travel, Past Midnight before a Workday
Master's Degree holder, telecommuting from the hot tub, proud Darwinian Dawkobot, and pirate librarian belly-dancer bohemian secret agent scribe on a mission to rescue bloggers from the wholesome clutches of the pious backstabbing girl fridays of the world.
UPDATED: Note the post name correction. *Uggghhh* Excuse me, I marvelously cannot type lately. (How I aced a recent typing test with 98 percent accuracy is beyond me.) --- Kent Hovind's diss--um, er, ertation, if you want to call it that, is now online. I loaded it onto my Kindle, which has new PDF-reading ability, and began the Text-to-Speech function.
When I read, "As an evangelist, God has given me..." (was God the evangelist?) I knew I was in for the long haul. My Kindle, in fact, started reading aloud in two ways: first in its normal voice, and then, in a silly high pitched whine.
Rather like that. Then, it let out a gasp and refused to read further unless I gave it some chocolate. Nobody else touches my chocolate!
I looked at the page (74) and read for myself (otherwise, I would never have believed it):
Bring back a Mars rock or a Jupiter rock, I'll eat it or lick it.
The best. Line. In a "dissertation." Ever! Bwahaha! My Kindle now demands pop-rocks.
Where can I find pop-rocks? I haven't seen those things in years. I offered to go to the Science Museum and pick up some freeze-dried ice cream, but Kindle won't hear of it.
page 87: "God created the plants on day three before he created the sun on day four. If you think plants are going to survive billions of years without the sun, you need to study more biology." Now, how can you argue with that? Bwahaha!
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. - Charles Darwin Clarence Darrow*
Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful. Anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful. - Andre Breton
His own revelation came while listening to the feedback about his son in kindergarten. It was fine, but nothing stellar — until he got to the art room and the teacher began raving about how creative his son was, pointing out his sketches that she'd displayed as models for other students. Then, Honoré recalls, "she dropped the G-bomb: 'He's a gifted artist,' she told us, and it was one of those moments when you don't hear anything else. I just saw the word gifted in neon with my son's name ..." So he hurried home and Googled the names of art tutors and eagerly told his son all about the special person who would help him draw even better. "He looks at me like I'm from outer space," Honoré says. "'I just wanna draw,' he tells me. 'Why do grownups have to take over everything?'"
At age twenty-nine, I was a second-shift supervisor of data entry clerks. My style was quite hands-off, although I had one strict rule: No backbiting. Anyone who had a problem with another employee either respectfully told that employee, or came to me. Except for one problem employee, chronically late and insubordinate, who required a lot of "talks" with me and my supervisor (and who eventually walked off the job), I had no bitchy behavior.
Then, I had the experience of being supervised by a better educated person who was quite a bit younger than me. Despite having had every advantage and privilege, this unfortunate person was a chronic complainer, whiner, control freak, and back-stabber. This person was intolerant of mistakes - even small mistakes - in anyone, and would get upset about them. I lost respect for this person when I learned that the target of the back-stabbing was me, a subordinate who had done nothing to harm anyone.
As far as I'm concerned, bitchiness is always going to exist in the workplace, but those who are in a position of power and who bad-mouth people beneath them occupy a unique category of wicked. Behavior like that is a tacit confession made by this type of person that he or she cannot compete honestly in a meritocracy, and lacks integrity as well.
My goodness gracious, I'm a big girl; I humored this youngster and would rather that the bullying happen to me, as opposed to someone younger and much more vulnerable than I was. But what creates such a bully? In my opinion, it is overparenting - refusing to allow your child to make mistakes. What folly. Mistakes, in my mind, are possibly heroic gestures - only those who dare, who take risks, make mistakes. Only those who imagine what cannot be and yet try to find out if it could be true - like Kepler with his polyhedra and Newton with his alchemy - make mistakes. The real mistake is in not admitting, at last, that they are mistakes! Kepler finally admitted that he could not reconcile his Platonic solids with the orbits of the planets, and instead bequeathed to us his exquisite laws of planetary motion. Newton, convinced in his certitude, went on to send several men to the gallows for forgery and died a virgin.
Every teacher can tell the story of a student who needed to fail in order to be reassured that the world wouldn't come to an end. Yet teachers now face a climate in which parents ghostwrite students' homework, airbrush their lab reports — then lobby like a K Street hired gun for their child to be assigned to certain classes. Principal Karen Faucher instituted a "no rescue" policy at Belinder Elementary in Prairie Village, Kans., when she noticed the front-office table covered each day with forgotten lunch boxes and notebooks, all brought in by parents. The tipping point was the day a mom rushed in with a necklace meant to complete her daughter's coordinated outfit. "I'm lucky — I deal with intelligent parents here," Faucher says. "But you saw very intelligent parents doing very stupid things. It was almost like a virus. The parents knew that was not what they intended to do, but they couldn't help themselves." A guidance counselor at a Washington prep school urges parents to find a mentor of a certain disposition. "Make friends with parents," she advises, "who don't think their kids are perfect." Or with parents who are willing to exert some peer pressure of their own: when schools debate whether to drop recess to free up more test-prep time, parents need to let a school know if they think that's a trade-off worth making.
Well, I admire Newton's knowledge, but consider him to have been an incomplete person, bitter and vindictive in his old age. My personal belief, if you want to call it that, is that each person must make his or her unique mistakes in order to be a complete person. If one is not brave enough to be wrong, one can never quite be right about anything - no matter how hard one tries. Expect too much, and you'll always be disappointed. Mistakes are dares; being "right" is mere coloring-by-the-numbers. Mistakes are creative; being "correct" is being redundant. Mistakes exist in all their obscene glory; being "right" is merely the absence of mistakes.
I have spent my life seeking to make my own unique mistakes. Quite frankly, I've become good at it, too. It's easy: just figure out 1) what scares you the most, and 2) if it scares you because you secretly want to do it, and 3) do it! Simple.
Needless to say, I'm good at being scared, too! In fact, I'm so good at being scared, that it's starting to feel like fun. (In other words, while other people are reading What Color is Your Parachute, I'm watching the ground come rushing up to me with startling calm and wondering, "...Parachute...?")
No wonder I have a strong stomach for the back-stabbing and "hate stares" people sometimes like to torment others with at work! I won't say that I'm not still angry about it, or that I am not still shocked and outraged by it. In a supposedly professional person who has higher ambitions, this behavior is shocking and remains shocking. However, it almost seems epidemic today; we have become a nation of control freaks. You may as well get angry about the weather as about how crappy people treat each other.
(Besides, life is too short. I never understood the "he's her best friend and they're both not talking to her" crap at the office, anyway. Who can keep track of the stupid politics, when Jupiter appears next to the full moon, or there is so much interesting stuff to read, or when I've come up with a great scene for my novel while listening to movie soundtracks while on the treadmill? Don't these people know that while they're freaking out over petty things, I'm thinking about my next writing project or adventure?)
Freakonomics authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt analyzed a Department of Education study tracking the progress of kids through fifth grade and found that things like how much parents read to their kids, how much TV kids watch and whether Mom works make little difference. "Frequent museum visits would seem to be no more productive than trips to the grocery store," they argued in USA Today. "By the time most parents pick up a book on parenting technique, it's too late. Many of the things that matter most were decided long ago — what kind of education a parent got, what kind of spouse he wound up with and how long they waited to have children."
If you embrace this rather humbling reality, it will be easier to follow the advice D.H. Lawrence offered back in 1918: "How to begin to educate a child. First rule: leave him alone. Second rule: leave him alone. Third rule: leave him alone. That is the whole beginning."
Not only do I think that children do not get outside for unstructured play enough these days, adults don't do it, either. Yet, unstructured play is key to building imagination, problem solving skills, negotiation, creativity, and values. As the surrealists knew, boredom was important:
Corsair Sanglot was bored! Boredom had become his cause. He let it grow in silence, while he marveled every day that it was still increasing.
VMartin often commented at After the Bar Closes that he was puzzled by my being an atheist and also being attracted to surrealism. He should not have puzzled over it. First of all, the surrealists were atheists (with the exception of Artaud and a few others), but secondly, and more importantly, the surrealists believed in the Marvelous. The Marvelous is not perfection - far from it. The Marvelous is the revelation of inner life to the willing surrealist. I am not interested in being perfect; I am interested in living life while I am alive. I do not believe that anything or anyone is ordinary. However, the sad thing is that, in their pursuit of "perfection," so many people make themselves ordinary, because they're trying to be everyone and everything else but who they are.
Who are you? You are the sum total of your decisions. Your life becomes the decisions that you make. However, if you make no mistakes, you really never made any decisions. That is truly tragic.
----
*Sigh* Excuse me while I strike out this "marvelous" mistake:You probably haven't heard that quote, have you? Well, Charles Darwin said it, and all the "documentaries" by Ben Stein or all the Origin of Species introductions by Ray Comfort cannot change it. Hell, both Ben Stein and Ray Comfort made mistakes - big ones. Let's see if either of them will be adaptable to admit it. Wah, wah, wah, waaaaaaaah! *Raspberry*
Halloween is coming - and you know what that means. It's the time of year for book burnings. So, what's going up in flames this year? Harry Potter? Porn? The Ultimate Sudoku Challenge? Nope - this year, it's Bibles.
Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect.
These are perversions of God's Word, the King James Bible...
We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort, Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham Rick Warren Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham, Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope...
Man. It sure is confusing, trying to keep up with the book-burners these days. But that's not all - if you want to see a true Halloween horror, check out this ministry's website, via this page (scroll down for the link - I'm not linking directly to these nuts). It looks like they licked a piece of candy-corn and wrote it on a puddle of melted crayons.
Since the author freely admits that he cannot read Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, how does he know that the King James Version is the only faithful English rendering of the Bible? Easy! The KJV tells him so! Wow. Such logic makes me weak in the knees.
Speaking of weak knees, apparently they don't make ghosts like they used to.
Ouch! That's awkward. I can see this Halloween shaping up to be just peachy. Therefore, I thought I'd rent The Shining again just to revisit a classic piece of horror by my favorite director. Wow! Was I disappointed!
Give me a break. This movie wasn't really that scary at all! What a rip-off. I don't remember it being so...so heartwarming. So now how is one supposed to have a scary Halloween?
Good old Mary Poppins! Yes, as I recall, it was this movie (and not Alien) that made me jump high enough to stand straight up on my theatre seat backrest.
But seriously folks, you can have a great and spooky Halloween without any television. Just go to hulu.com and check out their huluween specials, or my favorite classic shows: "Night Gallery," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and "Outer Limits." (They also have "Dark Shadows," but it's the 1990s remake, not the original series, which I love - but I have parts of that on DVD.)
When I was very small, I saw part of a TV show that scared the living crap out of me so badly that I had to leave the room - it was worse than the famous third story from "Trilogy of Terror," which I actually could sit through. ("Trilogy of Terror" is not at Hulu, but you can watch it on YouTube.)
This particular program, I remember, had something to do with red, glowing eyes following a man on the street in the dark before attacking him. Then, there was a scene in which a man trapped in a basement watches in helpless terror as a creature with two glowing red eyes reaches its hairy paws into the window to pull the bars open and come in. I remember that, knowing that the show was about to end, I waited outside the room until all the scary noises had died down, then ran in to see the very last scene: a dark puddle of something on the floor, out of which, suddenly, two red eyes opened and glowed.
Not having any idea what the title of this show was, or if it was a TV movie or part of a series, I searched IMDb and Google and YouTube for this show that had terrified me, without any luck, until a few weeks ago I stumbled upon it by pure chance at Hulu! I could not believe that I had finally found that silly show that had made me scream bloody murder! (And no, it didn't have the same effect on me now.)
It was a "Night Gallery" episode, "There Aren't Any More MacBanes," starring a very young and weird Joel Gray, and (coincidence upon coincidence) including a walk-on role by a young Mark Hamill, who was later to cause me so much adolescent-girl-puppy-love-trauma as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Too funny! It's a small Hollywoorld!
This year, the ghosts are not on the television - the ghost is our television! Television is dead. We can rebuild it; we have the technology. The average ghoul who wants more control over her Halloween viewing now has more choices than ever before. Between Netflix, Hulu, and LikeTelevision, along with all the online world news/entertainment channels to be had, and online mp3s of Old Time Radio shows, this promises to shape up to be a happy (and cheap) Halloween after all.
(What's that, you say? "Twilight Zone"? I didn't forget TZ - I have the entire collection on DVD. I don't even need an internet connection - I can watch it whenever I want! Bwahahahahaha! *evil laughter*)
Shimmies to Ed Brayton at Dispatches, and Book Patrol at Seattlepi, and all my ghosts and ghoulies out there. P.S. Any "Twin Peaks" fans out there? You can watch seasons one and two for free at IMDb.
And, ladies and gents, to continue our celebration of Revisionist History Month, did you also know that cowboys of the old west were individually tutored by older cowboys in dance and choreography?
Next up: Stamp collecting intelligent design advocates - finally out of the closet!
Catholic Charities is in a tizzy because some youths who want to help the homeless are putting on many layers of clothing and then "stripping" them off to music in an obviously humorous romp.
Holy communion wafer, the guardians of virtue freaked out again. No nudity is allowed, but who cares - young 17-year-old virgins are stripping! Oh, please, spare me.
As of Saturday, there were 20 videos uploaded on the "Strip2Clothe" site, which the site claims had generated a total of 51,291 donations.
The top-viewed video shows a man from the waist down shielding himself with drawings of shorts and various undergarments. The video has triggered 327 donations, the site said.
At least in the comments people are pointing out how uptight and self-righteous this society has become. Ever been to Europe? Topless beaches over there, topless women in magazines and on television - and a big ho-hum from the continent's young people. Some of us don't believe that the sight of a naked human body will corrupt the young (not that there are any naked human bodies in these videos, anyway).
The site is still up and calling for videos. And thanks to Catholic Charities, I never would have heard of this effort otherwise, so maybe I'll even upload one. (The videos are cute, and very innocent.) Even Harpo Marx stripped once - down to his transgender Bo-Peep dress - in A Night at the Opera, at 6:23 below.
Incarnate Muse Press is currently accepting submissions for two poetry anthologies forthcoming in 2008. Incarnate Muse Press is seeking poems for its second atheist poetry anthology.
Confront, question, or deny the god of your youth, the sacred text of your culture. Express your disbelief, disapproval, doubt, or dismay. Looking for honest, thought-provoking poetry daring to speak against the social norm of belief and/or attempting to take the stigma from nonbelief. Interested in nontheism expressed positively rather than solely in opposition to theism.
Avoid gratuitous vulgarity and unfocused anger. We feel that atheism is often defined too narrowly and inaccurately. A theos means without god(s). If there is no god you believe in, if you are not a theist, you are, by literal definition, an atheist. These categories fit anthology also: humanist, freethought, agnostic, biblical revisionist, sacrilegious …
Up to 6 poems, SASE. Please write atheist in your cover letter or email subject title. Pays copies. Deadline: July 30, 2008. Need ideas? Send SASE for suggestions.
Incarnate Muse Press is seeking poems from adult survivors of childhood emotional and/or psychological abuse. We are looking for poems of high literary quality rather than poems that are simply cathartic.
We are not wanting to see poems about physical or sexual abuse, but about the other abuse, the one that can be much harder to recognize. Parental bullying, neglect, disinterest, mental illness, personality disorders, etc., interest us. Possible topics: loneliness, self-blame, confusion, deep feelings of worthlessness, anger, recognition, acceptance, healing, forgiveness, distance, the impact on your adult relationships, etc.
Up to 6 poems, SASE. Please write abuse in your cover letter or email subject title. Pays copies. Deadline: June 15, 2008.
Addresses for submissions: Incarnate Muse ℅ Michelle Rhea PO BOX 5756 SANTA BARBARA CA 93150-5756 or IncarnateMuse@yahoo.com
*From Wikipedia: Members of the Space: 1999 cast became disenchanted with the scripts. Martin Landau: "They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into the act and they decided to do many things they felt were commercial. Fred Freiberger helped in some respects, but, overall, I don't think he helped the show, I think he brought a much more ordinary, mundane approach to the series." (Starlog 108 1986, pp. 44-47). Under the pseudonym of Charles Woodgrove, Fred Freiberger wrote three episodes, The Rules of Luton, The Beta Cloud and Space Warp, known pejoratively as the "Woodgrove Trilogy" for its simplistic approach to storytelling. One particular episode (All That Glisters, which dealt with the threat of an intelligent rock) was of such allegedly deficient quality that it sparked a confrontation between Freiberger and the cast. Landau disliked the story so strongly that he wrote the following notes on his copy of the script: "All the credibility we're building up is totally forsaken in this script!"; "...Story is told poorly!"; and "The character of Koenig takes a terrible beating in this script — We're all shmucks!"
(Things I post because I can’t find a complete and unedited version of Genet’s Chant d’Amoron the Web): Day No. 1: And the Lord God said, “Let there be light,” and lo, there was light. But then the Lord God said, “Wait, what if I make it a sort of rosy, sunset-at-the-beach, filtered half-light, so that everything else I design will look younger?” “I’m loving that,” said Buddha. “It’s new.” “You should design a restaurant,” added Allah.
Day No. 2: “Today,” the Lord God said, “let’s do land.” And lo, there was land. “Well, it’s really not just land,” noted Vishnu. “You’ve got mountains and valleys and—is that lava?” “It’s not a single statement,” said the Lord God. “I want it to say, ‘Yes, this is land, but it’s not afraid to ooze.’ ” “It’s really a backdrop, a sort of blank canvas,” put in Apollo. “It’s, like, minimalism, only with scale.” “But—brown?” Buddha asked. “Brown with infinite variations,” said the Lord God. “Taupe, ochre, burnt umber—they’re called earth tones.” “I wasn’t criticizing,” said Buddha. “I was just noticing.”
Day No. 3: “Just to make everyone happy,” said the Lord God, “today I’m thinking oceans, for contrast.” “It’s wet, it’s deep, yet it’s frothy; it’s design without dogma,” said Buddha, approvingly. “Now, there’s movement,” agreed Allah. “It’s not just ‘Hi, I’m a planet—no splashing.’ ” “But are those ice caps?” inquired Thor. “Is this a coherent vision, or a highball?” “I can do ice caps if I want to,” sniffed the Lord God. “It’s about a mood,” said the Angel Moroni, supportively. “Thank you,” said the Lord God.
Day No. 4: “One word,” said the Lord God. “Landscaping. But I want it to look natural, as if it all somehow just happened.” “Do rain forests,” suggested a primitive tribal god, who was known only as a clicking noise. “Rain forests here,” decreed the Lord God. “And deserts there. For a spa feeling.” “Which is fresh, but let’s give it glow,” said Buddha. “Polished stones and bamboo, with a soothing trickle of something.” “I know where you’re going,” said the Lord God. “But why am I seeing scented candles and a signature body wash?” “Shut up,” said Buddha. “You shut up,” said the Lord God. “It’s all about the mix,” Allah declared in a calming voice. “Now let’s look at some swatches.”
GOALS Governing Goals To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies. To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.
Five Year Goals To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory. To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science. To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda. Twenty Year Goals To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science. To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its innuence in the fine arts.
To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.
Now, come on. Does any one idea “permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life” and is our diverse and pluralistic religious, cultural, moral and political life to be “permeated” by intelligent design forever?
“To see its influence in the fine arts,” bwahaha. Good luck with that, peasants. If there’s anything the fine arts cannot tolerate, it’s dogmatism and puritianicism of any stripe.
They just don’t get it, do they?
UPDATED: Whereas the true meaning of life is to be found written on refrigerator magnets!
Funny, non-sappy video on You Tube (by someone who knows how to write music):
Note this commenter's remarks:
Reading comments i noticed that creationists sound rather childish and less educated than those arguing against them. Creationists use biblical fables, simple, abstract concepts of love and very low level baseless claims (like the comment below mine) and get responses that they probably cannot comprehend, supported by logic, scientific theories and big words.
Good luck with the art world!
SECOND UPDATE: Oh, please! Now William Kristol in today's New York Times yokes art into the service of propaganda with his column, "Democrats Should Read Kipling." Sir, I have read Rudyard Kipling, being that he was second to Edgar Allen Poe in my list of favorite authors. While it's true that Kipling identified with the colonizers rather than the colonized, Mr. Kristol, in your simplistic characterization of Republicans as the beleaguered ruling class and the Democrats as the “opposition,” you reveal your sad lack of knowledge of history and even more tenuous grasp of literature. Kipling understood as you do not that the relationship between the empowered and the disenfranchised is never so simplistic as you make out. You, sir, are also no literary critic.
Read the train wreck of a column if you want. Scott Horton has, and he summed up my sentiments precisely:
George Orwell, my favorite essayist, described reading Kipling’s poetry as “a shameful pleasure, like the taste for cheap sweets that some people secretly carry into middle life.” That, I have to admit, is much the attitude I have towards Bill Kristol’s New York Times columns. They’re so bad, so predictable, so thoroughly clichéd that it’s a sort of malicious treat to read them. And today’s exercise, “Democrats Should Read Kipling,” which offers us Rudyard Kipling supposedly through the optic of Kristol reading Orwell, is a veritable stale Milk Dud. It’s too bad to resist.
Creationists (Kristol is also an apologist for intelligent design) just can't create.
I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth. -Walt Whitman
Christmas is such a well established tradition/shopping season in the United States that it's difficult for many people to imagine that it was once a controversial holiday, rejected by many Christian denominations, even today.
"People don't think of it this way, but it's really a secular holiday," said Foster, a Princeton-based pastor in the United Church of God. He last celebrated Christmas when he was 8.
His church's objection to Christmas is rare among U.S. Christians. Gallup polls from 1994 to 2005 consistently show that more than 90 percent of adults say they celebrate Christmas, including 84 percent of non-Christians. That's a huge change from an earlier era, when many Protestants ignored or actively opposed the holiday. But as it gradually became popular as a family celebration, churches followed their members in making peace with Christmas.
But think about it. Remember these lines from A Christmas Carol:
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
"God bless Christmas"? Didn't that strike you as odd? It always did me. Did Christmas sneeze? Well, Christmas was not a universal holiday in England back then, either, and seen in this light, those words make more sense.
Christmas wasn't embraced by Americans until the 19th century - and even then, it was not embraced by all. But the idealistic writings of Washington Irving popularized the image of Christmas as a family-centered, egalitarian holiday dedicated to charity and peace.
In 1819, best-selling author Washington Irving wrote The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent., a series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house. The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly. In Irving's mind, Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status. Irving's fictitious celebrants enjoyed "ancient customs," including the crowning of a Lord of Misrule. Irving's book, however, was not based on any holiday celebration he had attended – in fact, many historians say that Irving's account actually "invented" tradition by implying that it described the true customs of the season.
The United Church of God and Jehovah's Witnesses and other conservative Protestants do not celebrate Christmas. Wiccans and Pagans celebrate Yule, while many atheist/agnostics and non-practicing Jews prefer to celebrate the Winter Solstice, although some (like Richard Dawkins) celebrate Christmas - which gets some Bible-believing folks into a lather - a humorous lather, or in the case of Albert Mohler, a weird, Scrooge-like, fribbitiginny-conniption-fit.
(I hope that I don't have to remind anyone that Hanukkah is not "how the Jewish people celebrate Christmas," as one woman griped in an interview on NPR in the 1980s, after she had just given a talk on Hanukkah to a bunch of Christians. I never forgot that one! A perfect example of projection.)
Life is supposed to be fun - so for a change of pace I'd like to share with you another one of my favorite pseudoscience cults (in the least menacing sense of the word): the Unarius Academy of Science. When I first saw this stuff on cable access television in the 1990s, I thought, "Oh, how cool, some has made their own science fiction film - low production values, and laughable plot, but amusing, and you get to dress up in Star Trek outfits."
And who are "they"? Well, hazard a guess willya? Meet Uriel's followers.
Poor Tesla. Still, why should Newton, Einstein, Galileo, and Dawkins be disproportionately hit with quote mines and distortions? Hell, I give the Unarians some credit for recognizing Tesla! (Just don't show this video to an, ahem, you know, an electrical engineer or anyone, *cough! cough!*)
Here's part one of one of the Unarius Academy of Science's "educational" videos.
Rumor has it that Turkana Boy's relative, who appears in this film, is so upset at his rotten performance that he's suing UAoS for posthumous emotional distress and humiliation due to the fact that 1) everyone assumes he's a Neanderthal, and 2) everyone assuming that he's a Neanderthal is the reason that they call him such a suckwad actor, when in fact, this acting just plain sucks. Sorry, man, but this scene blows goats.
You should have stuck to 1970s Bigfoot shows, man!
*"Until a few centuries ago, the favourite food of almost all men was meat – the flesh of once living animals. I’m not trying to turn your stomachs; this is a simple statement of fact, which you can check in any history book…
"Why, certainly, Mr. Chairman I’m quite prepared to wait until Senator Irving feels better. We professionals sometimes forget how laymen may react to statements like that. At the same time, I must warn the committee that there is very much worse to come. If any of you gentlemen are at all squeamish, I suggest you follow the Senator before it’s too late…" —Arthur C. Clarke, “The Food of the Gods”
Begosh and begorrah, but the morrow be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Arrr, mateys, greetings to all! First, a mug of the ole ale with Rev. Barky and those wicked wenches JanieBelle and Kate. Second, we tie Rich Hughes to the mast! Third, we make AFDave shimmy the plank! Wha-ho! Ignore me video, Davey, you scurvy knave-y!
We joined the navy to see the world, And what did we see: We saw the sea! We saw the Pacific and the Atlantic, but the Artlantic isn’t romantic, and the Pacific isn’t what it’s cracked up to be!
We joined the navy to do or die, But we didn’t do, and we didn’t die – We were much too busy looking at the ocean and the sky, And what did we see: We saw the sea! We saw the Atlantic and the Pacific, but the Pacific isn’t terrific, and the Atlantic isn’t what it’s cracked up to be!
They tell us that the admiral is as nice as he can be, But we never see the admiral, Because the admiral has never been to sea.
We joined the navy to see the girls, And what did we see: We saw the sea! Instead of a girl or two in a taxi, we were compelled to look at the Black Sea, seeing the Black Sea isn’t what it’s cracked up to be!
Sailing, sailing, home again to see the girls upon the village green Then across the foam again – To see the other seas we haven’t seen!
Rev. Barky and I are. (Well, I'm going to the conference; he's just coming along to feed me breakfast burritos.) ;-)
Who else out there is going? PiGuy? Rev. Chimpy? Shalini? Raise your blog hand if you're going!
I got into deep political discussions in the jacuzzi along with Pina Coladas while on my Galapagos trip, and wish to continue them this September! (The Crowne has a jacuzzi, right? Please tell me that it does.)
