Hello, friends, and welcome to the weekend? Ready for some brunch?
Have you heard about the newest, stupid fad? The Tide Pod Challenge. People, mostly teens, are filming themselves eating a laundry pod. It’s like the ice bucket challenge, with two big differences. First, no money is going to charity. Second, a LOT of people are getting sick.
This has actually been a thing for a couple years now, but is getting worse. In 2016, poison control centers responded to 39 cases of intentional exposures among teenagers. In 2017, that number rose to 53 cases. In the first 15 days of 2018, officials have responded to 39 cases of intentional exposure. Of those 39 cases, 91 percent were for ingestion, the AAPCC said.
Tide and other groups have gone out of their way to tell people not to eat their laundry chemicals, something they obviously are kicking themselves for not thinking of earlier. And some stores are locking the pods down, like they are laundry meth.
Yes, its 2018, and we have to tell people not to eat laundry soap. And, being 2018, this has become the subject of all kinds of memes and jokes:
Emma Gibson was conceived a year after her mother was. That is not a typo. Emma Gibson was conceived in 1992, but not born until late last year. She was frozen as an embryo and donated to a Knoxville faith-based clinic that specializes in embryo donation and adoption. Last year, she was implanted into her mother, Tina Gibson. “This embryo and I could have been best friends,” Gibson, now 26, told CNN. Tina and her husband “adopted” the frozen embryo after learning he was likely infertile. It came from an anonymous couple who went through in vitro fertilization (where sperm and egg are united in a lab) and donated their remaining frozen embryos, which have remained suspended in time for more than two decades.
Here’s a fun headline: Avocados Still Exist Thanks to Ancient Sloth Poops. The American Museum of Natural History recently shared a few facts about the Lestodon, an ancient 15-foot sloth that enjoyed eating avocados whole. As the animals (slowly) traveled around the land throughout the Cenozoic era, they pooped out avocado pits, and the fruit began to grow in new places around what is now North and South America. The Lestodon was one of the few creatures at the time could handle eating avocados whole, swallowing the pits along with the creamy flesh. If the Lestodons hadn’t ingested and subsequently relieved themselves of the avocado pits as they traveled, it’s very likely the fruit may have gone extinct.
By the way, The Ancient Sloth Poops would be an excellent name for a rock band.
A Michigan woman named Tara was driving home recently, and found herself behind an Amish buggy pulled by a lone horse. And a skier. Tied to the buggy.
Drunken Drone Flying is now illegal in New Jersey. The law prohibits flying a drone with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher, the same as for driving a vehicle, or while drugged. Violators face up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine or both.
Officials in the Tairua estuary on the Coromandel Peninsula on New Zealand’s north island decided this year to put a ban on public alcohol consumption over the holidays. But some locals found a loophole: they built an island out of sand during a low tide, and it was just big enough to fit a picnic table and and some brews. Because the friends were in “international waters”, they technically were excluded from the alcohol ban, and watched the fireworks from their little island.
But authorities seemed to be taking the initiative in light-hearted spirit. “That’s creative thinking – if I had known [about it] I probably would have joined them,” said local police commander Inspector John Kelly when told about the sand island.
The Atlantic posted a piece titled, “Science is Giving the Pro-life Movement a Boost”.
The first time Ashley McGuire had a baby, she and her husband had to wait 20 weeks to learn its sex. By her third, they found out at 10 weeks with a blood test. Technology has defined her pregnancies, she told me, from the apps that track weekly development to the ultrasounds that show the growing child. “My generation has grown up under an entirely different world of science and technology than the Roe generation,” she said. “We’re in a culture that is science-obsessed.”
“The pro-life message has been, for the last 40-something years, that the fetus … is a life, and it is a human life worthy of all the rights the rest of us have,” she said. “That’s been more of an abstract concept until the last decade or so.” But, she added, “when you’re seeing a baby sucking its thumb at 18 weeks, smiling, clapping,” it becomes “harder to square the idea that that 20-week-old, that unborn baby or fetus, is discardable.”
When Colleen Malloy, a neonatologist and faculty member at Northwestern University, discusses abortion with her colleagues, she says, “it’s kind of like the emperor is not wearing any clothes.” Medical teams spend enormous effort, time, and money to deliver babies safely and nurse premature infants back to health. Yet physicians often support abortion, even late into fetal development.
As medical techniques have become increasingly sophisticated, Malloy said, she has felt this tension acutely: A handful of medical centers in major cities can now perform surgeries on genetically abnormal fetuses while they’re still in the womb. … “The more I advanced in my field of neonatology, the more it just became the logical choice to recognize the developing fetus for what it is: a fetus, instead of some sort of sub-human form,” Malloy said. “It just became so obvious that these were just developing humans.”
But not all pro-life advocates want the movement to base its arguments on science:
“The question of whether the embryo or fetus is a person … is not answerable by science,” said Daniel Sulmasy, a professor of biomedical ethics …“Both sides tend to use scientific information when it is useful towards making a point that is based on … firmly and sincerely held philosophical and religious convictions.”
For all the ways that the pro-life movement might be seen as countering today’s en vogue sexual politics, its obsession with science is squarely of the moment. “We’ve become steeped in a culture in which only the data matter, and that makes us, in some ways, philosophically illiterate,” said Sulmasy, who is also a doctor. “We really don’t have the tools anymore for thinking and arguing outside of something that can be scientifically verified.”
The largest gadget show in the world, the Consumer Electronic Show, ended in Las Vegas last week. The most memorable new invention: Kohler’s Smart Toilet, designed to “make everyday moments better.”
Kohler’s high-end Numi toilets have been around for a few years but this latest version can be voice controlled, opens and closes automatically as your approach and even pre-heats the seat exactly to your liking. Mood lighting is standard.
You can even hook it up to your Amazon Echo, so you can ask Alexa to play encouraging music through the Numi’s built-in speaker. Which got me to thinking: what would be the most appropriate songs for your smart toilet to play when you take the Browns to the Superbowl? Here are a few suggestions for your playlist (add yours in the comments):
- Every Move You Make I’ll be Watching You (The Police)
- Release the Beast (Breakwater)
- Patience (Guns and Roses)
- Free Falling (Tom Petty)
- Let it Go (Frozen)
- Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
- Oops, I did it Again (Brittany Spears)
- Chocolate Rain (Tay Zonday)
- Who Let the Dogs Out? (Baha Men)
- Taking Care of Business (BTO)
NFL free agent Colin Kaepernick announced Wednesday that he will name 10 beneficiaries over the next 10 days for the final $100,000 of his $1 million pledge to charity. Each organization picked will receive an additional $10,000 from a different celebrity.
The Mormon Church has picked a new leader (Russel Nelson) and he’s 93 years old. Which is why they’re getting together on Friday to pick another new leader. At least you can’t accuse them of ageism.
At his introduction, there was this exchange between Nelson and Peggy Fletcher Stack, the Salt Lake Tribune’s award-winning religion reporter:
Stack: “So under President Monson we saw some real advances towards gender equity — the lowering of the missionary age, especially for sisters, and also adding women to some of the executive committees, but the Church leadership is still white, male, American. What will you do in your presidency to bring women, people of color, and international members into decision-making for the Church?”
Nelson: “That’s a good question, Peggy. I hope I can be forgiven if I say I have a special place in my heart for you. I know your mother. I know your father. I know all four of your grandparents. And I know your family — your missionary children who’ve distinguished themselves with wonderful service — so Peggy is special to me. Um, now what was your question?”
In case you haven’t seen one, here is a picture of a baby musk ox:
Miners in Africa have found a massive 910 carat diamond worth tens of millions of dollars. The diamond will go to either a museum or to Beyoncé the next time Jay-Z cheats on her.
Another odd headline: Toxic Extract Used in Poison Arrows Could Be The Future of Male Contraception. “Scientists have identified a chemical that could be suitable for a male contraceptive pill in a plant extract that African warriors and hunters traditionally used as a heart-stopping poison on their arrows. Researchers say ouabain, a toxic substance derived from two kinds of African plants … could serve as the basis for a working male pill.”
The cold weather didn’t stop the tumbleweeds from tumbling in Texas last week:
Did you know there are now four ax-throwing bars in Massachusetts? And two more scheduled to open this spring in Boston? That’s right, alcohol and ax-throwing. What could go wrong? So far, all the customers give it one-and-a-half thumbs up.
Tomorrow is the AFC Championship game between the Patriots and the Jaguars. PLEASE, PLEASE win Jacksonville. And Tom Brady has injured his hand. People said, “What happened?” He said, “You know that new ax-throwing bar?”
How about we end with some photos of the week, courtesy of the Atlantic:
Well, that’s it for this week, friends. Enjoy your Saturday. And be nice in the comments section please; we always learn more from people we disagree with. And I will be preaching tomorrow on Blessed Are the Meek, so don’t make me use any of you as bad examples!
The Internet Monk Archives 
That was before YouTube Challenge videos.
As one guy in Canada (nicknamed “The Annoying African”) who does emailed-in challenges put it after receiving one request:
“And I have to say: ARE YOU TRYING TO F’IN KILL ME?”
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According to Fr Orthoduck, the most common way for Orthodox to flake out is the “Monk-a-bee”, cosplaying and role-playing a highly-ascetic Monk without bothering to actually take vows or put yourself under the authority of a bishop or abbot. The more X-treme, the better.
When Evangelicals flake out, they dive into End Time Prophecy.
When Catholics flake out, they start channeling Mary.
When Orthodox flake out, they dress and act like X-Treme Monks.
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“I’m gonna be,
I’m gonna be,
I’m gonna be FAMOUS!”
— Opening theme, Total Drama Island
And that family on the news out here with 13 hellaiciously-abused kids whose mom was obsessed with Reality Show Stardom; there’s speculation that a lot of the Weirdness was to get them “discovered” for their own Reality show.
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Without a chamber and barrel to concentrate the force it would be more like a firecracker.
But still… how much beer was involved?
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A true classic, Rick!
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“o to be a Russian Monk now that summer’s here.”
(apologies to some one, google is down, I am sure someone will supply the info.)
Arh yes, we have Robert Browning, I thought so but thought I might embarrass myself if I said so.
Good man Robert B.
I would be anywhere cool today. No beach where I live.
35 degrees celsius continuously this past week and the heat to continue till Thursday, but still hot then.
35c is 95 fahrenheit..
Enough is enough, blame global warming? Maybe not, this happens every summer for us.
My grass lawn is now dust, I have the gardeners mowing it tomorrow. Dust masks are available.
Family coming at the weekend. My husband turns 75yo.
The frozen icecreams are playing hell with my figure.
Who cares, a girl has to keep cool somehow!!??
Keep warm ye who suffer the cold. Send me a snowball.
Susan
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The Circle of Life.
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Thanks, Rick. This one was fun to write.
I start teaching a new class this week (philosophy) in addition to my day job, so it may be the last one for me for a while.
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Nice brunch as always, Daniel.
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A friend of mine said that when he and some friends went camping once, they threw a bunch of bullets into the fire to see what would happen. Somehow, they all survived.
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Ah, birds. Who can forget THIS scene? (Might not be what you expect…LOL.)
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Stepson No 1 went to kindergarten in the 1980s, and they had a guard goose.
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Sentenced to a life of repentance and prayer = early retirement;
alternately:
sentenced to a life of repentance and prayer = A life that every Christian is already called to.
In other words, the only penalty the priest incurred was loss of hierarchical status, and (hopefully) being excluded from access to children, and whatever shame he’s able to feel.
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And there is no reason not to believe the victims. In fact, the priest was found guilty in a church court on the basis of the testimony the victims gave, and sentenced to a life of repentance and prayer. He could not be tried in a criminal court because the statute of limitations had been passed, but a judge acknowledged that the evidence against the priest was weighty. Why believe the victims testimony against the priest, but not against the bishop? If their word was good to convict the one, then it should’ve been good to convict the other in a church court.
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Also, blessed water isn’t magic. When Orthodox Christians bless something, we’re asking God to make it that which it was truly meant to be. We also drink our holy water, expecting it to nourish us the way water was created to do, and praying that we would partake of the blessing. We bless our homes with it on Theophany; all the property and buildings on our church grounds get bless with it. Tubs of water are blessed in church, and everyone takes some home. It’s actually fun to get sprinkled with it at the end of the blessing prayers! Three minute film of this at Optina Monastery in Russia (they have large blessing vessels because so many people go there):
The blessing of bodies of water is a reminder that when Christ went into the water, he was identifying with the creation he had made, and sanctifying all of it. Water is everywhere and without it we have no life. For the ancients, it was also the source of chaos and very dangerous. Already God’s entry into this world is having cosmic effects. Orthodox priests will bless the nearest body of water; sometimes that’s the ocean. My favorite is the blessing of the snow at the Continental Divide by a priest and congregation in the Denver area.
The whole Theophany feast is full of light. It’s beautiful, and one of my favorite days.
Dana
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The pope angrily accused the victims of slander. There is no question that a priest under the charge of the bishop committed the molestation; the crime has been established. The pope says there is no proof that the bishop knew of the molestation, taking the bishop’s word that he did not do it; on the other hand, one of the victims says that he was molested by the priest in the bishop’s presence, but the pope rejects the victim’s word. If the pope feels that he doesn’t know what actually happened, he should certainly not turn around and and angrily accuse the victims of slander; in the event that they are telling the truth, he has hurt them yet again at the hands of the church. This is a textbook example of how not to handle cases of sexual abuse, and the enabling misconduct of church culture and hierarchy. His lack of compassion and understanding about this issue has already further alienated Chileans against the Roman Catholic Church.
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Robert, me too. I understand they contain a lot of fat, so they have to sit above the bottom of the pan, and the rendered fat removed. I used to be able to get ducks fairly inexpensively and would roast them on an electric spit in the bbq, with a foil pan under the bird to catch the fat so it wouldn’t smoke and burn. That could work with a goose, too.
Dana
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Robert, All the Pope said was that the Bishop in question had not been found guilty of any of the charges against him and there was no proof. He said if someone could bring him some proof he would act. Sounds like a responsible response to me. I don’t condone many things the Catholic Church has done but you just can’t call someone guilty if they have no proof
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Sheesh — birds. When I was eight, I was accosted by Peter the Pelican, a tourist favorite on the island of Mykonos, who was determined to untie my shoelaces. I climbed onto the wobbly table of an outdoor dockside cafe, but Peter didn’t give up until my mother drove him off — I expect he was familiar with Kipling’s thoughts on the female of the species.
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I’m impressed you found a way to even get the Browns even into the playoffs…
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I’ve worked for several years to make my back yard hospitable for birds and seemed to be making progress increasing the number hanging around in the bushes and birdbath. About two months ago someone either moved out of the neighborhood, or drove through, leaving, or dropping off a number of cats. The new residents have taken a pointed, and for me, an unhappy interest in the fowl frequenting my yard.
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Mule, It seems the Romanians are very tolerant for years and accepted the Trans Syvalian community with no problems. A lot of people think that a lot of the people that are trans syvalvian suck but that is a steroeytype and the trans sylavians can use any restroom they want and many in Romania are in transit as society changes.
ans can use any restroom that that id with.
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Adam , it is a Tidal vave of young people riding the wave of adventure into the tide of the future where stupidity is awarded with pbulicity .
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I think the theme song for Game of Thrones would be my choice for crap music and I use the term corrrectly not loosely . However it is no game for me and I must attain the throne immediately when the call of destiny or nature comes.
Sometimes if things do not go well I would play the old WW 2 song Its Been a Long Long Time by Harry James. Like many things I produce iit is flushed down the toliet and the world approve, no actually demands that one of the movements of my life is just down the toliet..
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scenagriggs acutally you should have added Robert to the DUUUUUVAL mantra as it would have more relevance but you must must out county out the Jags.
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Ah, the hysterical nature of modern America.
In 2017 there were 53 cases of idiots ingesting laundry detergent.
IT IS A CRISIS SWEEPING THE NATION AND DESTROYING AMERICA’s YOUTH.
So… in a nation of 300M+ people, 0.000000197% of people engaged in this dangerous behavior. You almost need scientific notion to express the not-strength of that trend.
The first journalist who wasted zer time on that should be fired.
If journalists need data on **real** problems they can just shoot me an e-mail or give me a call; I am easy to find.
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Robe F. If you love duck you must be Daffy. When a goose attacks you are suspose to duck or chricken out or do a swan dive or be unfalabble or flock together to avoid attack. I have been fortunate in my life I have not been geesed or goosed but I am usually early as i like the worm. I just had to stoo and take a gander of the photo. It it was attacking a priest it was not a bird of pray.
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a lifeless spider
transfixed behind the glass of
a gas pump’s dial face
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They’re fleeting.
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I’ve never eaten goose, but I’d like to try it. I love duck.
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Depends how you feel about geese.
I am in the geese-are-avatars-of-darkness club.
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She has her moments.
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Well,….that deescalated quickly
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I would venture that the Count loves modernity, with all its many options to choose from, and, when he’s feeling religious, identifies most readily as Protestant, and probably of a Unitarian/Universalist variety.
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Nature ain’t cute.
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Then Bob Cratchett happens along, recovers the remains of the goose, and finds it mostly intact. He defeathers it and takes it home to Mrs Cratchett, who seasons it and tosses it in the oven, pulling it out for Christmas dinner to Tiny Tim’s delight
God bless us every one
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Thanks. (I stole the captions from the Atlantic).
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lovely
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The Orthodox holy day celebrated by blessing the water and re-enacting the baptism of Jesus is called Theophany not Epiphany. It’s the celebration of Jesus’ baptism.
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What would be cuter?
A baby musk ox and a baby panda cured up together taking a nap. . . . and about to be attacked by a goose, the mama musk ox noticing the goose, the goose being trampled into a mush of blood and feathers, then the two adorable babies stretch and yawn, have been slightly disturbed by the spritzing of splashed goose blood.
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I haven’t been attacked by geese, but a couple of years ago I was plagued by a Muscovy duck who escaped from a local farm and started hanging out at the duck pond in my local nature park. I guess he saw me as some kind of threat and tried to attack my shins. Luckily I usually wear jeans over knee-high boot socks, and ankle-high boots, so his attacks didn’t do any damage. After his third try at me he gave up and eyed me from a distance every time I came so sit on my favorite bench. Soon after he disappeared; either he finally went back home or one of the local minks got him.
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“I’ve come to your gentrified neighborhood to suck your blood”
“I’m sorry Mr. Vampire, we don’t have a coffee shop here yet”
“Damn, should I have gotten on the #6 instead?”
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A nice gesture by the Peruvian shamans to welcome the pope, but he really screwed up in Chile this week. He demonstrated that he really doesn’t understand the situation of the victims of pedophile priests, and that he is not changing the Roman Catholic Church’s institutionally dysfunctional handling of the problem, because understanding is a prerequisite of change in this matter. He caused the victims in Chile, and everywhere, more pain. It’s sad.
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It is true
My very first scar is from a goose attack. I hate those things, they are only beautiful coming out of an oven.
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Now Snake Venom as make birth control – something about that sounds right. Da dum!
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Yep.
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Well, Count Dracula wanted to move west, to a nicer neighborhood with a wider choice of prey. He got bored after centuries of nothing but Romanian Orthodox peasant blood. Variety is the spice of undeath, after all.
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Baby red panda
Cutest animal ever
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Explanatory note: Because football stinks.
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For the smart toilet Superbowl playlist:
That Smell (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
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Former Episcopalian attacked by geese here.
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I did some stupid, dangerous stuff as a kid, but I don’t think anything we did was guaranteed to put you in the hospital. You had at least a small chance of coming through uninjured.
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DUUUUUVAL!
[ Jaguars mantra ]
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Two baby musk ox.
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“Geese will attack anyone”
Indeed. As a staunch Baptist, I have been attacked. The buggers are fast.
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What could be more adorable than a baby musk ox??
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The shamanic rituals before Francis’ arrival is an interesting juxtaposition…
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The reason that science is important to both sides in the issue of abortion is that what goes a long way toward making abortion morally acceptable or not is whether or not the fetus at some particular stage is or is not a human person. We all know that human life is involved, since the fetus is human and is alive. The question that needs answering is whether it is human like a finger or kidney, which is not a person even though it belongs to one, or is actually an individual, discrete, distinct human being, with its own existence and a right for that existence to be recognized and protected. If our bodies are not merely mechanical shells for the housing of our souls, if our identity is inextricably wrapped up and involved as part of it essence in being incarnate, then a claim to scientific knowledge about the human status of the fetus at any particular stage of development is involved in every moral calculation about whether abortion is legitimate or not. By itself science cannot answer that question for us, but the use of science in arriving at an answer is reasonable and necessary, since what we are dealing with is a physical phenomenon, a physical reality. If science has no function in it, then the abortion rights absolutists are correct, and it is a completely subjective ethical matter that may be answered differently by different people, and should be left at all times and in all stages of fetal development to the pregnant woman to answer.
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Hunh
Most of the Orthodox shenanigans ar Epiphanytide are cultural accretions, like the Russian Polar Bear clubs. There probably wasn’t a priest within forty miles of the goose’s victim, although they are not forbidden to participate. Geese will attack anypne. They’re highly ecumenical that way.
Which reminds me. Why do vampires, supposedly from Orthodox Transylvania, seem to have a fetish for Catholic blood?
Also Shabbat Shalom, Ben Grimm..
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So you have to dunk yourself in ice cold water and be assaulted by a goose to be Orthodox?
Sorry, Mule, I’m good with Protestantism. 😉
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For the superbowl playlist I’ll bid two Byrds songs: “Hickory Wind” and “I’ll feel a whole lot better”
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Botox? Medicines derived from snake venom like my mother takes for diabetes? It’s not that uncommon.
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I listen as sleet
whispers its lonely secrets
to my cold windshield
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Heart stopping poison as male birth control. Sounds as though it needs work.
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