Hello imonks, and welcome to the weekend. Up for some rambling?
It seemed to rain a lot early this week in much of the country, but that was really just the tears of grown men staring at seven months of painful FWS (Football Withdrawal Syndrome). Besides the tears, other symptoms include:
- Compulsively checking the DVR to see if there are any games you haven’t already seen four times.
- Suddenly caring about televised tennis, golf or college volleyball.
- Paying attention to college football signing day as if it actually affected your life.
- A listless ennui on weekend afternoons and Monday nights.
- Listening to your wife.
- Rediscovering why Arena Football sucks.
After I had written the above, I did a quick google on FWS and discovered that it is an actual thing (and the epitome of First World Problems). A Loyola Psychology professor has even offered some helpful tips:
- Don’t go cold turkey. Watch football on YouTube, or on recordings, in gradually diminishing amounts.
- Share your feelings of withdrawal and letdown with a friend or spouse.
- While it can be unpleasant, football withdrawal is not serious enough to require antidepressants or other medications. And do not self-medicate with drugs or alcohol.
- Most important, buck up. “You’re just going to have to basically tough it out until football starts up again.”
Shout-out to Dumb Ox
On a related note, CT took note of “deflategate” and asked its twitter followers for examples of what “what is the ministry equivalent of playing with a deflated football?” Some of the more popular answers:
- Planting people in the congregation to respond to an altar call to get things moving.
- Referring to transfer growth as “revival.”
- Ghostwriters and sermon research assistants.
- Counting visitors as regular attenders.
- Plagiarized sermons.
- Counting online “church” attendance.
- Using The Message Bible.
- Whatever Joel Osteen is doing.
Do you agree? Any additions?
200 clay tablets were discovered in Iraq recently. They have been displayed for the first time this week. Why is this interesting? Because they date to 572–477 B.C., the time of the Babylonian exile under King Nebuchadnezzar, and have provided scholars a rare, detailed glimpse into everyday Jewish life during the Babylonian exile.
Robert Mugabe is a bad man. A very bad man. The Zimbabwean President (official title) and All-Around Awful Dictator (unofficial title) was pictured tripping this week: 
and he asked the internet to take down the picture. Yeah, I’m not sure he understands how the internet works. Mugabefalls was born: 
Remember reading, To Kill A Mockingbird in High School? Yeah, me neither. Anyway, Harper Lee is publishing a sequel 55 years later. She actually wrote the sequel first, but her agent convinced her to write a story set earlier in the life of the protagonist (Scout), and that story became the book that won her the Pulitzer. Ms. Lee is still alive, and recently rediscovered the manuscript from the first book.
See this guy? He’s a troublemaker. Big time.
- He probably kidnapped that baby
The boy, nine-year old Aiden Steward, has been suspended three times this year at his new school, Kermit Elementary School in Kermit, Texas. His first offense was referring to a fellow student as “black”. His second was bringing his favorite book to school; “The Big Book of Knowledge”, alas, has a picture of a pregnant woman. And the offense that tripped the third felony? Well, after seeing the latest Hobbit movie over the weekend, he told one of his classmates that he had a magic ring that could make him (the friend) disappear. The school administrators, who apparently were never children themselves, interpreted this as a threat and suspended him. His father appealed: “I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence. If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.” But school officials can’t be too careful these days, especially not with a thug like Aiden. 
Starting next year, children in the U.K. may be born with the DNA of three different people. A Parliamentary vote this week approved a controversial fertility procedure, an in-vitro fertilization technique that would combine two parents’ genetic material with that of a third female donor. If the other chamber, the House of Lords, votes in favor next month, the U.K. would be the first country in the world to permit three-person IVF. The goal is to allow women who carry the genes for mitochondrial disease to have their own biological children without passing down the risk for that disease. The vote was seen as very good news for those with the disease, but one MP cautioned, “There is a very clear boundary that babies cannot be genetically altered, and that once you’ve decided that you can, even for a small number of genes, you have done something very profound and then it’s merely a matter of degree as to what you do next.” What do you think, imonks? Good use of technology to alleviate hardship, or a slippery slope to GMO kids?
So this item is a couple months old, but I missed it till last week and it is too good to not mention here. You may remember that one of the wonders of the ancient world was the Colossus at Rhodes. You know, this one: 
Well the mayor of Rhodes is pushing an effort to rebuild it. He just needs some money and the approval of the Greek Culture ministry which has, “expressed perplexity.”
No pope or religious leader who serves as a head of state has ever addressed the U. S. Congress. That will change on September 24. Pope Francis has accepted John Boehner’s invitation during his U. S. trip, where he is also expected to address the U.N. in New York. Nancy Pelosi, like Beohner a Catholic, said she was, “honored and overjoyed” that Francis was coming. Perhaps she can have some facetime with the man she affirms as the Vicar of Christ to explain her longstanding support for legal abortions without restriction. Or how late-term abortions are “sacred ground”. Or, more pointedly, the remarks she made about abortion opponents while she was accepting the award of eugenicist and racist Margaret Sanger last year: “When you see how closed their minds are, or oblivious, or whatever it is — dumb — then you know what the fight is about.” Yes, I think Nancy actually would be “overjoyed” to instruct the Pope on Catholic moral theology.
Speaking of Francis, the Pope made some waves this week for his remarks on corporal punishment. “One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say ‘I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them.'” Francis commented, “How beautiful. He knows the sense of dignity. He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.”
Guess what they are building in Iceland. C’mon, guess. If you said, “The first temple to the Norse gods in 1,000 years“, give yourself a cookie. The temple will be a place for weddings and funerals, as well as a venue to worship Thor and Odin. 
No word yet on if they will follow their religious ancestors by engaging in human sacrifice.
Relevant Magazine published a list I found interesting: 11 Church Phrases that Freaked me out as a Kid. 1. The Lamb That Was Slain 2. Washed in the Blood 3. On Fire for God 4. The Holy Ghost 5. Born Again 6. Jesus Is Knocking On the Door of Your Heart 7. I’m Not of this world 8. The Lamb’s Book of Life 9. The Devil is a Roaring Lion Seeking Someone to Devour 10. The Sea of Forgetfulness 11. Guard Your Heart. Now obviously, some of these are straight from the scriptures, and the author’s complaint is that they just sounded weird/frightening to him as a child. What about you, imonks? Any christianese that freaked you out as a kid? Or that still freaks you out?
What happens when a Jewish synagogue growth analyst decides to visit the evangelical mega-church up the road? A blog post, of course. The title intrigued me: It’s Time for the Jewish Megachurch. And what can synagogues learn from an evangelical mega-church? I will highlight just the first point for discussion. After describing how “these churches deliver powerful, personal spiritual experiences” the author says, “Contrast this lively, consciously-designed spiritual theater with the average synagogue service. Unlike the careful design of the megachurch service — and the crisp, 75-minute length — mainstream Jewish services are cobbled together from relics of the past and lame attempts at accessibility. Why, in heaven’s name, do Conservative and Orthodox congregations repeat the heart of the liturgy — and then repeat it again at the “additional” service? Well, Jewish law, tradition, recollection of ancient sacrifices. Because that really fills the pews. And why the stultifying readings, recited in monotone, at many Reform temples? Why the sing-song tunes that inspire no one but the cantor? … It’s 2015. Every Hebrew word must be transliterated, and preferably projected on a screen. Every part of the service must be reconsidered, and evaluated based on what kind of experience it will create. And services should last an hour.” Thoughts, imonks?
Speaking of spiritual theater, Pastor Ed Young is in the news again. Young took to Twitter to announce that he would be “baptizing” a copy of 50 shades of Grey next Sunday at church. Wait, what? Yes, this is part of his plan to “baptize fantasy and raise up reality.” You will be shocked, yes shocked to learn that he has an alternate book of his own to promote, 50 Shades of They. But I am still confused. Is he literally going to dunk a copy of 50 Shades in the baptistery? And then what? Will it be Christian? Will it have to tithe? Listen to Ed’s sermons? Or will the “resurrected” 50 shades be Ed’s own book?
Finally, if you are in the San Francisco area, you can see your tax dollars at work promoting queer agriculture. No, I am not making this up. The Center for the Study of Sexual Culture at Berkely is offering a free (read: taxpayer funded) seminar next week, entitled, “Queering Agriculture”. Of course, the description is priceless: “This talk highlights vital ways queering and trans-ing ideas and practices of agriculture are necessary for more sustainable, sovereign, and equitable food systems… the manipulation of reproduction and sexuality are [sic] a foundation of agriculture… By focusing on popular culture representations and government legislation since 9/11, it will become clearer how the growing popularity of sustainable food is laden with anthroheterocentric assumptions of the “good life” coupled with idealized images and ideas of the American farm, and gender, radicalized and normative standards of health, family, and nation.” Apparently Berkeley feels basic grammar and readable prose would also be anthroheterocentrically oppressive.
The Internet Monk Archives 
AKA where you are the sustainable agri movement is spearheaded by those who have little credibility with the established farmers. (I remember a documentary on the Dust Bowl that said it took many years for contour plowing and restoring grasslands to catch on among Dust Bowl farmers, and that happened only when they were backed against the wall by it.)
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Now that was bloody exciting!
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Moby Dick
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Mark Twain wrote an entire essay pointing out the inconsistencies in the Leatherstocking tales.
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P.S. When I was at Cal Poly, I knew someone who DID have full eidetic memory and near-total recall. He said it has its dark side; you cannot forget ANYTHING, including all the times you’ve been hurt; Eidetic means you remember them at Full Emotional Intensity, and it’s really easy to dwell on those to your detriment — Depression or Revenge.
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If you had a 600 IQ, you would not be able to interact with anyone except other 600 IQ Ubermenschen. I’ve heard that a 50-point IQ difference makes the Other literally incomprehensible, and from my experience as a kid genius I believe it — the difference in mental clock speeds and mental database just becomes too great. Someone over at Cracked.com called it “Living in Idiocracy for real”.
One of the side effects of this is “Growing Up Martian”, where you act and think like an outside Alien observer; the mundanes don’t really register as people. In its lightest form, you’re Uncle Travelling Matte from Fraggle Rock observing The Silly Creatures. In its darkest, you’re Ozymandias from Watchmen, where it’s OK to smash any number of Low-IQ Untermensch eggs for his Omelet goal.
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You’re not the only one to make that observation. It’s been a popular argument to discredit the book itself, that John was high when he wrote it. More accurately, it’s the Trippy Imagery of a dream, nightmare, or Jewish Apocalpytic tradition.
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Don’t forget Jehovah-Juana/Tokin’ the Ghost/Yoing Yoing Yoing.
And as for “that scorpion thing”, do you mean the Giant Rubber Scorpion Stinger scene from the TiTN sequel?
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Doesn’t sound like Vulcans.
More like either the Borg or Kyle’s Mom.
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Late to the party – I was away from the computer yesterday – and risking that this will not be read, but must say it anyway.
What in the hell are we doing even considering tampering with the 46-human-chromosome-offspring-of-2-biologically-human-parents (biological) definition of “human”? I don’t care how much affection an animal can show – and I’ve had some pretty affectionate pets – they are still not “persons.” Our thinking on this has become very clouded.
I usually agree with the Finn, but there is certainly an ethical problem with such tampering, especially since scientists themselves admit that current scientific abilities are far ahead of the ethical discussions our society must address.
What’s worse is the underlying notion that we can eliminate suffering through biology. There is a related discussion on Fr Stephen Freeman’s blog under his article “To Be or Not to Be – A Moral Question?” Fr Stephen comments:
“The madness of the present order is in its drive to eliminate suffering. It cannot be done. The drive to eliminate suffering always results in murder. Christianity is not about murder – but about the transformation of suffering and the salvation of the world through union with the suffering God…. It is something the American theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, has said in many ways. Whenever ending suffering becomes the driving principle in our ethic, we wind up having to kill people to stop the suffering. We already do this in euthanasia and abortion. There are certainly very important things that we should do to aid/heal those who suffer. But when we seek to eliminate suffering, we necessarily begin to exercise a measure of coercive control that will ultimately require killing people. The distinction between “eliminate” and “alleviate” is indeed important….Christianity does not teach a world without suffering. Christ did not die to end suffering. Christ died in order to change death itself, and in that change, trample down death by death….Christianity is a life of self-offering. It is a life of voluntary suffering for the sake of the whole world and its salvation. There is no other true form of Christianity.”
I recommend this, and the next post, “Boundaries, Borders and the True God.”
Dana
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Rick, The Message isn’t “The Bible”? ;o)
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For example:
Pride and Prejudice
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Trevis: Type in the less than sign, the letters “em” and then the greater than sign. Type what you want to come out in italics. Then type the less than sign, forward slash, the letters “em”, and then the greater than sign. It sounds complicated in text, but it is designed to be visual, so once you type it out it will “look right”. After you post the comment, all the text in between the tags will show up in italics.
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I find that sometimes we need to read it all in a way that bypasses the well-worn paths in our brain so that we actually think about what we are reading rather than just falling straight to what we decided years ago and not even considering any other possibility.
Well said.
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“?Whatever Joel Osteen is doing.”
There should be an option to write these words in green.
Much is said on this site about him, and still he and his ministry bear the fruits of the Spirit, ie John 15:8.
I believe there is a warning in scripture about not touching God’s anointed. The mean spiritedness shown here toward him is disgusting to me. The proof is in the pudding, and it seems the country is hungry for this word. I don’t see the harm in reminding people to focus on what is of good report, to treat others with kindness and you will be rewarded. It happens to actually be true that whatever you are thinking about is coming directly to you, and this fact requires no belief to exist.
Prosperity gospel, whatever….God is pleased when His people expect above and beyond what we mere mortals could accomplish to happen in our lives because of our awesome God actively participating in our lives. Not everyone can sit in ashes and rip our clothing to make a statement. It’s more effective to live a life of love and honor and lift people up from the ashes. That’s when God pours out His blessings with glee.
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+1 Jazziscoolithink
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“Our inability to be disciplined and consistent over the long haul, our faults, may save us! Now there’s an appeal to hope that a pessimist can get behind!”
Yep. Bureaucracy [boo! hiss! blah blah] represents both the best humanity is capable of and the worst humanity is capable off. And in Bureaucracy each ensures the possibility of the other. This is human history. It has always been a tangled mess, will continue to be a tangled mess; and thank goodness for that.
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I’ll make sure I have a thick tablecloth on the table, David. Thanks for the recommendation.
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“Roadhouse Blues” RobertF? The Doors maybe?
;o)
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Yes. I would think they’d find the punishment….illogical.
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My edition of the book is the 2nd. Apparently there is a newer 3rd edition published in 2007 with a new section entitled “After Virtue after a Quarter of a Century.”
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Agreed.
Be prepared to bang your head against the table a few times in the reading. Or maybe that is just me. But hear one of his concluding sentences:
“And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope.This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it our lack of consciousnesses of this that constitutes part of our predicament.”
He wrote in the mid 1980’s, Where are we now in the new dark age? We hardly have light enough to see our way around. (my opinion)
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Laptop? I’m pretty sure my smartphone can do that.
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Thank you, Trevis.
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My mom, ca. 1988, looking at the cover to the sheet music to Stryper’s “Honestly” she was practicing on the piano for a wedding she was to play at: “Oh, I didn’t know Stryper had girls in it!”
Teenage me: ***crickets***
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“After Virtue” is the standard recommendation, with which I concur.
Let me also hereby register my annoyance at my inability to italicize book titles in online comments.
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Revelation reads like a bad acid trip.
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Most places I’ve been never bother purging. Because we do pastoral care, our pastors are pretty good about keeping up with who’s still alive in the congregation. But if you don’t keep in good touch with your people, and nobody follows up after months of absence, then often nobody notices when some member dies and fails to notify the church. The example I heard of was a Presbyterian church. Our membership roster is not too far from our weekly attendance, and our Pastor does new member’s classes all the time, so you can only attend so long before getting sucked in.
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The Scarlet Letter meant zippity doo-dah to me in high school, but I liked it a lot more in college. I only read To Kill A Mockingbird when I was an adult, and I rally liked it.
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Oh, yeah, Italy and France both are surprisingly big into rugby (I think Ireland, No. Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, France, and Italy comprise the Six Nations in question). Beyond the obvious likes of NZ, Australia, South Africa, and Western Samoa (OK, obvious if you’ve been around for a while), rugby is pretty darn big in Argentina and Chile too.
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GODzilla vs. Magog-gogue, you say?
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David, I’ve been thinking for some time of reading MacIntyre. What book do you recommend starting with?
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My daughters as toddlers associated “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” exclusively with getting their pants pulled up after a diaper change. Luckily (I guess) at that time we went to a church that didn’t sing too many traditional hymns.
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Btw, friends, imagine that my tone of voice is verycoolandcollectedithink.
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I did quote you so you’d know what I was talking about.
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Italy has a rugger team? Who knew. Do they allow flopping?
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Rick Ro. wins. Here is your shiny new internet.
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It only surprises me because in my neck of the midwest the sustainable agri movement is all but spearheaded by “queer” folk and crunchy-granola liberals. I think a lot of the local tobacco farmers just assume sustainable agri = gay.
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Thanks, Rick
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What’s more, you can catch the Six Nations tournament going on right now in the rugby world. Just watched Ireland dismantle Italy this afternoon after being disappointed with Wales’ performance in losing to England yesterday.
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How about wonderful memories, like Cornerstone Magazine?
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Stryper? An ocean of bleach couldn’t rinse that album cover from my eyes.
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There sure is a lot of room for runners up for freakiest Christian™ memory. How about Jack Chick’s Alberto? Keith Green’s Catholic Chronicles? John Todd? Illuminati and its fleet of flying saucers? Satanic-ritual-abuse? That scorpion thing from the Thief In The Night Trilogy? The computer in Brussels the size of a city block with everyone’s name? Planet Alighnment? 99 reasons Jesus is returning in 1999? Mike Warnke? Holy Laughter? Slaying in the “spirit”? It’s amazing we’re not all in the looney bin…yet.
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Surely Vulcans would be smarter than that bunch.
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You’re both wrong! Pelosi is not in the Senate or Assembly. She’s in the House of Representatives! You guys must have went to school here in Cali.
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I have no idea what you are talking about. You engage in projection much?
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Actually, that’s Assembly Member for life. Barbara “Box of Rocks” Boxer is the Senator.
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Ha ha! No Tucker around these days!
Actually, there is a desal plant planned for my area south of Camp Pendelton. They have the OK from the appropriate agencies, now we’ll see if the enviro lobby can manufacture some OTHER reason to stop it.
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Richard, I’ve been living in California since 1975 and I KNOW how the process works. The initiative process can BE a referendum and THIS one WAS! Even initiatives, when they are passed, become LAW! It was written by former Assembly members and had hard and fast guidelines on how the train was to be built, financed, and operated. That is why the whole process in now in the courts, because the governor has started to build it WITHOUT presenting a business plan. He has also OK’d the selling of bonds to raise the money, which is a violation of the spirit of the whole thing, if NOT the letter. The courts will decide
When it was up for a vote I read everything about it, the pro side as well as the opponents and I voted as I usually do when it comes to voluntarily giving government my money: NO!
Unless you have been closely following this in the California media then please do not suppose that I don’t know what I am talking about.
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Good Saturday Rambling today, Daniel.
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Or jazzaintcool.
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Agreed. I like The Message as a supplement to the Bible.
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Or a bad Japanese monster movie. “Godzilla vs. Mega-gogue.”
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“Any conspiracy theory that involves long term disciplined ordered behavior and consistent control of information is doomed; people should take comfort in that.”
I wholeheartedly agree with that statement! Our inability to be disciplined and consistent over the long haul, our faults, may save us! Now there’s an appeal to hope that a pessimist can get behind!
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Someone please find that child a new school. His appears to be run by either Vulcans or robots!
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Grouchy IS as grouchy DOES.
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I do not consider myself an Optimist. Inequality, brutality, poverty, … these are not going to go away. But Pessimism – and I consider myself a Pessimist – is still bounded by practical constraints.
A wealthy educated bajillionaire is not going to advocate an economic scheme where all his modern luxuries fail and ultimately his children can’t get antibiotics when they cut themselves on the playground. Making all those things is resource intensive and requires a LOT of people having a LOT of knowledge and the capacity to exercise that knowledge.
We may still nuke ourselves! I will give you that.
It frightens me more than anything else the failure of seeming so many people to grasp the enormous complexity of modern industrialized society and a population of ~7 BILLION people. Any conspiracy theory that involves long term disciplined ordered behaviour and consistent control of information is doomed; people should take comfort in that.
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looks like jazziscool just showed us jazzisactuallyhotunderthecollar
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Reform does not happen overnight, especially in the Catholic Church. His Christmas address to the Curia described by Religion News Service as “Pope Francis to Curia: Merry Christmas, you power-hungry hypocrites” could give one hope. I’ve seldom heard a sermon in a Protestant Church so straight forward and to the point. He may not be so brave addressing the US Congress, but Congress is not his to reform. And one must remember that powerful forces oppose him. And he is an old man.
Of course American politicians on both sides of the isle will milk it for what they can. They always do. But one seldom hears the truth from any of those treacherous vipers.
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> it would be an intensification of an already existing situation,
Agree.
> but now the inequity would become hard-wired by genetics.
(a) this assumes such engineered traits would be inheritable.
(b) the dread scenario requires that the engineered breed primarily only with their `own kind`. This seems unlikely; the rates of interracial marriage are already high, and climbing. Humans do no behave so rationally.
(c) Engineered mates would be desirable. So they would likely produce more offspring, almost certainly – humans being what they are – by multiple mates. Engineered advantage would not remain tightly quarantined within a strata or sect.
> Not only could the offspring of genetically altered parents afford good dentistry,
> they would have genetically perfected teeth passed on from generation to generation,
Assuming we can engineer that via genetics, yes. In reality genetics is not so straight-forward or reliable. Many factors influence development.
> so they would actually need less dentistry.
I believe we already see health benefits, without genetic engineering, passed down within populations. Of course adverse conditions also may produce surprising genetic advantage – ask an epigeneticist the advantage of having great-grandparents who survived famine. Engineered genetics does not stop the natural process of genetic change.
> At some point a large enough quantitative change becomes a qualitative change.
Maybe, but I think this scenario is so far down the road, and requires a degree of technology we are not even close to possessing, that it requires distant speculation. I do not see it as an immanent issue.
> that the Imagine a world in which the IQ of the affluent classes on average
> dwarfs that of the poor by a huge quantitative difference;
Maybe. But IQ does not correlate to economic or social success.
> Doesn’t this throw your calculus of societal costs and benefits off, because it would be an
> unprecedented development?
Maybe, but I doubt it. Societies are organizations, they require structure, process, resource inputs,… I don’t believe how things work is that fungible. And a super-class of non-humans … I can *only* speculate on what the motivations of such a being would be; they wouldn’t be “us” anymore. If I had a 600IQ, eidetic memory, long life, and no health issues what would I want? Not to mention I would have access to much better technology and probably a superior education. I might be a much better and nicer person, I would not feel threatened by much of anything. Only time will telll.
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You optimists are no fun. Don’t you ever like to suspend your disbelief for the sake of a good apocalypse or dystopia?
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I can answer affirmatively to both charges for myself: religious, and moody. Not necessarily in that order.
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Yes, it would be an intensification of an already existing situation, but now the inequity would become hard-wired by genetics. Not only could the offspring of genetically altered parents afford good dentistry, they would have genetically perfected teeth passed on from generation to generation, so they would actually need less dentistry. At some point a large enough quantitative change becomes a qualitative change. Imagine a world in which the IQ of the affluent classes on average dwarfs that of the poor by a huge quantitative difference; imagine all the wealthy in every society buying into this modification, while the poor cannot. Doesn’t this throw your calculus of societal costs and benefits off, because it would be an unprecedented development?
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Read it and seen it.
The first is very dated; the science is ridiculously simplified, and Aldous Huxley needs read up on Organizational Behavior, possibly take some PolSci classes. The trouble with many of these dystopian fantasies – including in a very big way the Hunger Games series – is that these imagined societies would not survive for a calendar month. Their resource acquisition and distribution schemes are hyper-fragile; and they would almost certainly produce pervasive mental illness, which is untenable. The later criticism is certainly true of Mr. Huxley’s dystopia.
Of course it serves the story arc – in a hyper-fragile system the Hero has a chance of taking down the machine. And then the story doesn’t have to deal with the ramifications of the machine being crashed.
And Gattaca. I just didn’t get it. Such a society would be hopelessly inefficient.
BTW, who in the Hunger Games series maintained the high-speed Maglev train? BTW – a maglev rail system would be useless for moving freight such as coal and cement; so how did those thing get between districts or to the capitol? Who produced the mining equipment used by the coal mining district? Or the tractors used by the agricultural district? And who mined and refined the copper needed to build both tractors and the trains? Do the peace keeper guards not realize that giving workers a tractor is handing them a very effective weapon? Maybe it is a hang-up of mine – but these authors need to try harder. Or just make evil villains who aren’t morons; because subtle evil is much more sustainable.
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Scrooge?
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Don’t you know that South Park is a DOCUMENTARY?
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Senator-for-Life Pelosi has always been a San Fran political machine hack.
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That’s BURRET TRAIN.
“AND THINK HOW MANY JOBS IT WILL CREATE!”
Problem is, California’s geography works against any sort of high-speed ground link between the major Northern and Southern coastal cities. Sure, you have a clear run from Stockton to Bakersfield, but to get to the populated areas around the Bay and SoCal you have to get over a near-solid belt of MOUNTAINS whose few passes are already clogged with rail lines hauling freight. And in the north, what passes there are run through the Upscale parts of the area, filled with Limousine Liberals who are gung-ho for the Burret Train Saving The PLAAANET until they find out it’ll run next to their Environmentally-Friendly, Carbon-Neutral backyards. Then they start lawyering up to block it.
And Elon Musk (Space X and Tesla Motors) figures he can do a pneumatic tube-pod system connecting LA & San Fran that’ll be faster, cheaper, and come online earlier. If Our Enlightened Betters don’t shut him down like Preston Tucker.
And we’re still rationing water out here. No desalinization plants, no attempts to actually SOLVE the problem, just wagging fingers and lectures to “CONSERVE, CONSERVE, CONSERVE” from Our Enlightened Betters. And tip lines/cash rewards for anyone who informs on a Water Waster — like children informing on their parents and becoming Heroes of The Party/PLAAAAANET.
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And the 6:00 Metrolink train past the stadium actually runs near-empty.
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> Since the poor and wealthy are unlikely to have equal access to presumably
> expensive genetic modification techniques
They do not have access to quality medical care – today – even of a generic nature. Doesn’t this create a gap? Appearance and presentation is a big part of a job interview. Pit reasonably qualified candidates against each other – one having a life time of dental care and the other having had no or minimal dental care – Who is going to get that job?
Inequality exists; I don’t see how genetic modification/selection is a fundamental change to the situation. Children of those with wealth or education have phenomenal advantages over children of lesser means. I could bore you with mountains of data to prove that – but it is so obvious I think everyone just accepts it.
> isn’t it likely that a genetic gap would develop between the wealthy and the poor,
> even apart from any species change?
Absolutely, yes.
> What would be the ethical implications of such a gap?
What are the ethical implications of the gap we have now? I don’t see a difference.
> Does some variation on H.G Well’s imagined future in “The Time Machine,”
> with Morlocks and Eloi, seem unlikely or impossible?
Very unlikely. Societies of extreme stratification are unstable. Those on the higher echelons of society may promote stratification, they may even like it, but beyond a particular threshold it is untenable – particularly in a world with pervasive high-power weaponry. Beyond a particular threshold it ceases to be in anyone’s interest.
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Then the Holy Ghost appears in Naked Pastor’s cartoons, NP draws Him as a bedsheet ghost with a halo. But then NP has a weird sense of humor.
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Or a comic-book Supervillain.
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DON’T GIVE THEM IDEAS!
This is UC Berserkely we’re talking about.
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Oh, he was pretty well known in the D&D community in the Seventies. As well as (his native milieu) the Bay Area neo-pagan community and Discordian Society.
Also famous among Christian Culture Warriors of the period as a Sign of The End Times, i.e. “the guy who got a degree in Magick & Sorcery”. (The real story being: This was UC Berkely in the Late Sixties/Early Seventies, and they had a “design your own major/design your own degree” fad at the time.)
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Old-Timey christianese that freaked me out: “Here I raise my Ebenezer.”
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> Or would they have their own set of distinct, non-human rights?
Would depend on the nature of the non-human. “Rights” for an AI, particularly if it is non-corporeal [in our sense of the term] is an unexplored concept. Possible unexplorable until it comes to pass as we can only speculate about its manner of being.
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Ever notice how much of these Christianese Nightmare Fuel are “Pin-the-tail-on-The-Antichrist” moments?
Thank you, Hal Lindsay.
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> there has sometimes been coercion hidden in apparent consent.
Of course. Consent itself is even a complicated concept; obviously a child born to a engineered being did not choose to be so engineered, but the ‘natural’ child did not choose its condition either.
> Would human rights extend to the new species?
I would hope so, and I expect it would be so [this would require first – legally – recognizing these beings as non-human; otherwise they would almost certainly remain under the umbrella term of Human]. My guess/prediction is that people would just begin to use the term Person rather than Human.
There is, today, increasing motion towards institutionalizing some rights for non-human species. There have been discussions on the legal personhood of some higher primates as well as Cetans. It is hard to imagine such discussions being taken seriously even twenty years ago. The trendline seems clear.
I am confident that if on a nice summer day I strolled around my neighbourhood and just asked people: “Do you feel that it is appropriate to refer to a dolphin or chimpanzee as a ‘person’?” that the overwhelming answer would be Yes. If I included Canid in that list I doubt it would drop much. Maybe I should do that when spring finally comes. It would be interesting. I would be willing to wager beer and tacos that I’m right.
Unlike the block-headed morons of the latest BattleStar Galactica series I doubt most people would continue to refer to even an AI as a “Toaster” once it clearly demonstrated self-awareness. Modern people, at least in the West, generally seem to adapt to change pretty rapidly; clearly with some fringe exceptions.
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“And by the way, please don’t pull out that old trope that saying Democrat is some sort of right wing code for…WHATEVER.”
Your ability to project whole systems of thought on others and pull imaginary arguments out of thin air is just astounding, Oscar. I guess that and your overuse of EMPHASIS (which tends to become the boy who cried emphasis) goes along with your Sesame Street name.
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Since the poor and wealthy are unlikely to have equal access to presumably expensive genetic modification techniques, isn’t it likely that a genetic gap would develop between the wealthy and the poor, even apart from any species change? What would be the ethical implications of such a gap? Does some variation on H.G Well’s imagined future in “The Time Machine,” with Morlocks and Eloi, seem unlikely or impossible?
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Nothing better than Spring Training in Arizona
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Perhaps Ms Pelosi can ask the Pope about the church’s misogyny?
The secularist in me naturally bristles at the idea of our representatives fawning over a religious leader but in reality what difference does it really make? Everyone will get what they want; the moralists will get their morality and the politicos will get their politics. Soundbites without end, amen.
I understand Pope Francis’ popularity. I really do. He allowed the church to change the subject. But changing the subject is not reform and it’s fascinating how the church is always on the cusp of great changes but somehow never changes. Funny how that works
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The other points aside, you misunderstand the point of California’s initiative process. It was put in place in the Progressive Era as a mechanism to force a decision on the elected officials, particularly one they wanted to duck. Its purpose has never been to be a quasi-mandatory process to ratify the decisions of the elected officials. Making decisions was, after all, why they were elected. Considering that high speed rail has been Brown’s signature issue, and he was reelected easily, its not as if the voters were wildly opposed to the idea. If they are, they can put an initiative on the ballot to block it.
You might also look up the difference between an initiative and a referendum.
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Wait, a Lutheran church is padding the membership roster with dead people? We have our little quirks, but this sort of thing is not typically one of them. As for members of other churches, this can happen if someone wanders off without saying anything. At what point do you purge the membership roster? There isn’t a single simple answer, but if you are keeping people you know are dead, then you clearly have crossed the line.
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Or would they have their own set of distinct, non-human rights?
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Historically, there has sometimes been coercion hidden in apparent consent.
Would human rights extend to the new species?
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Doesn’t Mega-gogue sound like something invented for a movie on Ezekiel 38-39?
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I know who Ike Bonewitz is!
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Everyone in this discussion has one assignment- if you have not done so, read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and/or watch the movie GATTACA.
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Wait… are you suggesting that Trey Parker and Matt Stone side-line as CCM lyrics authors? Huh. That explains SO MUCH. How do they keep that secret?
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As opposed to REPUBLICAN or TEA PARTY. This site has been fairly merciless on them, so it is refreshing to see the other side skewered.
And by the way, please don’t pull out that old trope that saying Democrat is some sort of right wing code for…WHATEVER. I used caps just as an emphasis
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getting our attention?
demonstrable political passion?
thinly disguised provocation?
stuck caps lock key?
take your pick.
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Hate to say it, but most of those phrases remind me of a South Park episode where Cartman started a Christian rock band, and wrote his songs by inserting the name Jesus into overtly sexual pop songs.
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I have a fair amount of respect for academics, tempered somewhat by my own experience as an academic. But this kind of over-the-top goofiness brings to mind William F. Buckley’s famous quote, “I would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the entire faculty of Harvard.”
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Please reconsider. If you do, I will drive up to wherever you go to church just to see him do it.
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To the Relevant magazine list: I would add any reference to Jesus being “inside” me, “touching” me, or any reference to my being in “His warm embrace.” Actually, that doesn’t creep me out as much as it just makes me giggle in church.
I feel as though I should mention that I am an adult. Don’t know why.
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I used to sing a messed up lullaby to my infant son that parodies that hymn:
“There is a booby filled with milk, Drawn from your mommy’s veins.
And babies latched onto the breast Loose all their hunger pangs.”
Now he is really beginning to talk, so I’m contemplating switching up the repertoire before he starts belting that one out in church.
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Nothing at all would surprise me here (in California)…except for maybe a modicum of ‘common sense’.
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Just 2 weeks away, baby! Hope springs eternal!
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Most congregations have members of other churches on their membership roster, I know ours does. Some churches have dead people on their membership roster. When your weekly attendance is a fifth of your membership roster, your stats don’t mean jack.
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I can’t read Oscar’s mind but I heard DEMOCRAT with a tiny pause on each side and a slight increase of both volume and pitch, all for emphasis, along with an unspoken parenthetical aside saying something like “unlike the usual bashing of REPUBLICANS here). In other venues italics or underlining might have been used, but you can’t do those here easily and I think the all caps actually worked better to express the sly pillorying of our usual prejudices. Granted there was a certain element of snarkiness involved, but hey, this is Oscar. Now if he had written the whole paragraph in all caps, that would have just been rude shouting. Oscar is much more subtle than that.
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Others in ministry deflategate:
Buying your way onto the New York Times best seller list.
National “brand” church plants in affluent areas already served by dozens of churches.
Fog machines.
This last one might be just me, but paying enough to have your church website pop up on Google every time someone in your area searches for anything remotely related to Christianity.
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I’m not sure what the objection is to Berkeley offering a talk by a academic with maybe non-standard ideas, but ones that they see value in. That seems like exactly the thing that public universities should be doing. Anywho, it seems like the lecture is really an inter-left debate about how we should try to avoid framing ecological activism, and sustainable food production in a way that reinforces hetero-normative culture, and excludes queer perspectives, this seems fine!
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My dad used to say that one of the scariest verses in the bible is “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”
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I don’t have any issue with using the Message in personal or family devotions, or something to that effect, but it has always struck me as odd when it is a primary translation used in a worship service. Especially feels weird hearing someone preach out of the Message.
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“DEMOCRAT”
I wonder what you think you are accomplishing with the use of all caps.
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“What happens when a Jewish synagogue growth analyst decides to visit…?”
“Every part of the service must be reconsidered, and evaluated based on what kind of experience it will create.”
In other words they are becoming Protestant. Alasdair MacIntyre points out how our ethics have become based on the subjective, feeling-based, personal preference. Or, in other words “whatever makes you happy.” The thing is, it is more than about ethics, but about life itself. We need a good “experience” — a good feeling — to be happy — to live a good life.
Maybe they should avoid this slippery slope?
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Eh. I’m not upset about the temple to Ma Kali down the road from here a bit, or the mosque a few miles in another direction, so I don’t have a problem with Icelanders who want to worship the Norse gods again—but I’m pretty much a universalist.
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I like the deflategate parallels. But while I do not consider the Message to be a standard translation, I find that sometimes we need to read it all in a way that bypasses the well-worn paths in our brain so that we actually think about what we are reading rather than just falling straight to what we decided years ago and not even considering any other possibility.
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You apparently remember more than me! Mockingjay, ah, I mean Mocking Bird, is a lot like the Scarlet Letter – wasn’t that about some women and a naughty pastor? I can barely remember.
In many ways the lists of Classical Literature seem arbitrary. I will never forgive those lists for including James Fenimore Cooper. Like, ok, I read the Leatherstocking tales… most interesting thing about the entire series is that some guy built a cabin in the middle of a lake – how did he accomplish that by himself? How did he deal with seasonal changes to water levels? That is about the only memorable part; I remember pondering those questions to a level of distraction [as the characters were so uninteresting sunk timbers were fascinating].
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If you’ve ever read W.O.mitchell’s “Who has Seen the Wind” you’ll recall the young protagonist saying that “God is all grapes and bloody” as determined by the stained glass window in his prairie Presbyterian church.
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> Humanity is after all intrinsically religious.
Yes, and moody.
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Yes, and award for Worst Economic Stimulus Idea ever. But, yeah, it is Greece. They might do it anyway. Or build the legs and then quit.
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+1
I am in the boring Midwest, hardly a hotbed of “queer” anything, but I do not find this seminar hard to believe. Within the Local Food People are **some** with *really* radical crazy ideas and dispositions; them latching onto queer does not surprise me at all; a *few* of them bring everything back into the context of their movement [which, BTW, I generally support and contains a lot of plain common sense good ideas].
I’ve listened to Local Food people oppose affordable housing because it would reduce the amount of space in backyards along an alley as those yards could possibly be used as gardens to raise food.
Meh… new movements are prone to attracting Radicals [who are Radicals no matter what movement they go to]. This too shall flame out.
And isn’t it simply UnAmerican not to related *everything* to sex?
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> Oh, wait. That’s just my 2015 laptop. I feel better suddenly.
+1,000 🙂
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> I have no moral issues with genetic modifications of humans or even with cloning.
Same here
> The problems arise from people’s reaction to it. Discrimination and hate would abound
In the West? I doubt it. There will be some over-reaction by the mentally unstable, there always is; another excuse for a radical fringe to do stupid things – they will always find a reason, it is not about the reason.. And there will be some initial celebrity. But then everyone will return to their regularly scheduled programming and it will just be the new normal.
This will not be common place until the boomers are rapidly ageing out; and I cannot see the GenXs or the Millenials being up-in-arms about it in any significant numbers.
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But (metaphorically speaking — or perhaps even not), it’s true.
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Well said Damaris. Now back to reading some more Wendell Berry.
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> At what point would genetic modifications to humans result in transformation
> from human to something else? A new species, say?
The point at which the engineered being could no longer regularly produce viable offspring with a non-engineered person. Given the wide range of human variability, and the very wide range of variability we see in other bloodlines which remain capable of interbreeding in at least specific directions – such as Canids – this is a question which likely lies very very far down the road, further than most people would guess.
> Would this be ethical?
Why wouldn’t it be? We’ve been engineering ourselves, just not genetically, for centuries. If it is consentual and the process is transparent it doesn’t bother me in the least.
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And how about counting each child and baby in the nursery, as well as each person on the platform as part of the congregation when doing “crowd counts”?Talk about pumping up the statistics!
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Scary phrases: “There is a fountain filled with blood, flows from Emanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains”
This goes BEYOND Wes Craven!
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Thank you for pillorying the largest DEMOCRAT target, Nancy Pelosi, and her nonsensical support for all forms of unrestricted abortion. It’s about time that the other side of the aisle got their turn for once!
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If Jerry Brown, the superannuated Governor of California, can push forward with building a “bullet train”,
1) with money he does not have,
2) without a business plan required by a voters’ initiative,
3) on land no one wants to give up,
4) while exempting himself from ALL of the environmental safeguards everyone else has to abide by,
5) which will NEVER approach the high speed as advertised (it will be using existing track to SAVE MONEY! Hahahaha!)
6) AND which may never be finished in his lifetime,
then, well, why CAN’T the people of Rhodes reproduce the Colossus?
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I find the renascence of cultural manifestations of paganism, such as the proposed Colossus of Rhodes and the temple to the Norse gods, amusing when I remember that only a generation ago sociologists were propounding secularization theory as the predictor of the near inevitable worldwide outcome of modernism. Humanity is after all intrinsically religious.
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“The future’s uncertain,
and the end is always near.
Let it roll, baby, roll…
Let it roll, all night long..”
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Yeah, but the thing about nature is that if it uses sexual reproduction at all, it relies on two genders. Can Berkeley make it that two roosters can raise eggs? Nature imposes its own limits. However, if the alternative community (I use that term with respect; I’m concerned I won’t get all the letters right) objects to the little-house-on-the-prairie image of the modern sustainable farm, they can produce books and magazines that offer a different image. A seminar may be fun, but is it really necessary? I say this as an academic myself, one who is concerned about the diversion of increasingly scarce funds from actual education to other activities.
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Reinvention of revivalism. When I was a kid we went to large community revivals held in large “tabernacle” style buildings. I remember an Aussie evangelist by the name of Dr. Neil Macaulay who was able to fill one up for at least 2 weeks. The music was different from now, but the whole thing was very entertaining, plus many “seekers” went forward.
I know other stories about revivalism also. Methodists and Baptists were good at it.
Was it good or bad? I have mixed feelings.
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Sheep steeling is a deflated football. I get really tired of it.
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The mayor of Rhodes is pushing an effort to rebuild (the Colossus). He just needs some money and the approval of the Greek Culture ministry which has, “expressed perplexity.”
Given that Greece is set to go bankrupt about… *checks the time* …next Tuesday, the mayor appears to have… Very Poor Timing.
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Lol. Good stuff.
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I would certainly NOT include The Message in the list of “what is the ministry equivalent of playing with a deflated football?” To do so simply goes against my paraphrasal preferences….
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At what point would genetic modifications to humans result in transformation from human to something else? A new species, say? Would this be ethical?
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Along the same lines, I’ll have to go with the supercomputer in Brussels capable of holding all the personal identifying information of everyone in the whole world.
Oh, wait. That’s just my 2015 laptop. I feel better suddenly.
Or how about the way the Beast will force everyone to buy and sell using his 666 mark. As if we’re all going to suddenly stop using cash and all plug in to some interconnected world-wide system of some sort more or less voluntarily.
OK, I don’t feel so good anymore. The end is near after all. (Actually, according to my GPS, we may have already passed it and need to do a U-turn. Awkward….)
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Good coinage, IndianaMike, though I have to add that David Brooks once asked in his NYT column, “Why are there no mega-gogues?” some years back. So, unfortunately, you’ll have to pass on the copyright application.
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This Berkeley seminar sounds odd, but agriculture does have a sexual component to it. Pollen, you know, “fertilizes” (in that way) other plants. This is why the declining bee population is so problematic. These bees go from plant to plant carrying pollen from one to the other and that’s where little plants come from. Or as stated in Wikipedia: Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred from the anther (male part) to the stigma (female part) of the plant, thereby enabling fertilization and reproduction.This takes place in the angiosperms, the flower bearing plants.
So this very odd sounding meeting could well be connected to plant biology. Or it might be really, really odd,
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I follow my favorite college football team in the fall but the Super Bowl is literally the only NFL game I watch. As football season comes to an end I’m much more excited about the fact we’re only 6 – 8 weeks from the beginning of motorcycle season.
Kermit Elementary School, because Texas is becoming the other state (after California and Florida) where all the weird news comes from. Let’s do more than blog about it, let’s write or call: Kermit Elementary School, 601 S Poplar St. Kermit, TX 79745 (432) 586-1020.
Lots of good stuff this week Daniel. I enjoyed the CT deflate ministry list, look for it in tomorrow’s Happy Monday via The Master’s Table.
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Football Withdrawal Syndrome: Pitchers and catchers report in about two weeks. Suck it up and watch basketball until then. Or better yet, check out various other football codes on Youtube. You can switch between Rugby Union, Australian rules, Rugby League, and Gaelic. It is actually quite fascinating trying to figure out what is going on. American football derived from Rugby. Watching Rugby is like listening to some provincial English dialect you come so close to understanding.
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I remember when I was a child, sitting and staring at the stained glass window that depicted the Trinity and fearfully wondering when I would see the Holy Ghost.
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Megagogue, good one. The 7 day Adventist are doing the same thing here, it shocked me. They are having a seeker sensitive Sunday service. For Adventist, a Sunday service is a really big deal, I can’t believe the church didn’t get kicked out.
My Lutheran friends are funny about it. The “Long range planning committe” at my church is planning for a new building with a non-descript room with raised stage so they can have a seeker service with a praise band. Estimate it will be built around 2025-2030. It will be funny when in 2030 they catch up to the 1990s.
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Megagogue?
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As in…
Cure for FWS…
Pitchers and Catchers report!
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Regarding Iceland (whose inhabitants still speak Old Norse), I understand that when Iceland went Christian, followers of the old gods were still allowed to practice, so long as they were discreet about it. And that original Norse paganism didn’t peter out there until the 18th Century or so. Assuming it actually did die out, if there was such a gap breaking direct continuity, this new temple to the Aesir & Vanir is actually NEO-pagan, attempting a reconstruction/revival instead of continuing the Old Ways.
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Revelation has some awesomely spectacular trippy imagery.
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What? Exactly? Makes? Queer? Agriculture?
Oh, it’s UC Berserkely. Ike Bonewitz’s old Alma Mater. That explains it all.
Next week it’ll be the Bigots against ISIS.
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As a California resident I just want to say… … … actually that’s not really all that surprising in this state.
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” By focusing on popular culture representations and government legislation since 9/11, it will become clearer how the growing popularity of sustainable food is laden with anthroheterocentric assumptions of the “good life” coupled with idealized images and ideas of the American farm, and gender, radicalized and normative standards of health, family, and nation.”
So now agriculture is sexualized… and they are going to use our tax dollars to ‘correctly’ sexualize it by ‘queering’ it.
Nah, nothing disordered there…
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And people complain about so-called “Christian” metal musicians and the imagery on their album covers..Revelation people!!!
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Christian stuff that freaked me out: the Beast with 7 heads and 10 horns, ridden by the Whore of Babylon, who was drunk with the blood of the martyrs (or however it goes). Doesn’t that make you want to bang your head and make the Sign of the Devil?
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CatcherS!
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“Any christianese that freaked you out as a kid? Or that still freaks you out?”
I remember as a young boy riding in hilly Appalachia on two lane very curvy road, when up ahead there was a large sign that said in big letters: PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. Right under it was a yellow diamond shape curve sign with an arrow denoting a sharp curve ahead. At that point in my childhood all signs along the road were the same, and I didn’t understand the difference in a state highway sign and one planted by a religious organization for the purpose of frightening kids.
Well, it did give me a strange kind of fear , and one that a child should/could not connect to a loving God.
I still hate those signs.
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Mockingbird’s Revenge
(the black guy did it after all. Or was it the retarded guy?)
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Of course, for a lot of folk, a good cure for FWS is hearing this…
Pitchers and Catcher report…
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I have no moral issues with genetic modifications of humans or even with cloning. The problems arise from people’s reaction to it. Discrimination and hate would abound, so it may be better not to even start.
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