'Nuff said...
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Pastor poses serious question: Have Christians embraced Satan?
Chuck Baldwin - a Christian minister who I have a tremendous amount of respect for - earnestly asks in his latest essay: "Have Christians Already Accepted the Mark of the Beast?"
All I will say is that this should be a challenging read for those who think that some people in our government are "anointed by God".
Monday, August 13, 2007
Board of Education votes to limit speakers to 5 minutes, and only 1 hour for comments
I'd planned on attending Monday night's meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education, and would have been there had some things not arisen on this end. So there's no first-hand account this month. But the Reidsville Review already has up a story about some of what went down this time.
The board voted 8-4 to impose a time limit of 5 minutes per each person who addresses the board during the public comments portion of the meetings. Which is considerably more than the limit of 3 minutes that the board was originally considering. Elaine McCollum, Reida Drum, Nell Rose, and Nell Rose voted against the limit. Voting for it were Celeste DePriest, Ron Price, Lori McKinney, Amanda Bell, Jim Austin, Wayne Kirkman, Herman Hines and John Smith.
I suppose that 5 minutes does seem pretty reasonable. This however is not: that in addition to the 5 minutes per person, the board is also limiting public comments to one hour per meeting.
Now I wish that I had been able to be at tonight's meeting, because this was something that I was afraid might happen, although I had enough faith in the board to believe that it would be rather unlikely.
Five minutes per person, I can kind of understand. But shutting off all public comment after one hour is completely unacceptable.
Let's say that this rule was in place during the school uniforms debate. As actively a part of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (that was the group opposing the uniforms) that I was, I would not have wanted to see one side completely dominate all the time allowed for public argument. But if this rule had been enforced during the past few months, there's no doubt in my mind that anyone who was in favor of the uniforms would have been effectively shut out from having their support become a matter of public record. That wouldn't necessarily have been a conscious effort either on the part of the uniforms opponents: naturally they would have wanted the board to hear them out. But that shouldn't come at the cost of unfairly denying the other side their fair say in the matter, either.
What this means is that at some point during a matter of contentious debate, one side or the other on an issue is going to seek to abuse this new policy by "stacking the deck" in their own favor during the public comments time of a meeting. It probably won't happen anytime soon or even in the next year or two, but it's coming. And I really don't know if allowing for the possibility of an entire meeting devoted to public comments is going to alleviate that concern.
Folks, this is laziness. It's dereliction of duty, even. Members of the Board of Education should have understood when they ran for the office that they would be called upon to make a sacrifice of time in order to carry out the duties that they were asking to take up. If they were unwilling to see that done in due fairness for all citizens, then they shouldn't have run for the seat in the first place. They should be made to stay until 3 a.m. if that's how long it takes to listen to everyone, because that's what they signed up for when they said they wanted the job. If some board members can't take this demand of their office, then they should reconsider whether they belong on the board at all.
Do I think this is, in the least bit, a lash-back against the initiative that a lot of people in the public - the ones that Ron Price referred to as "bad for the community" - took in defeating the uniforms? Not much doubt in my mind on that one, folks. I dare not say this reflects on everyone who voted for this limit tonight but there were a number of those who went in favor of this that I can't say it's a surprise to see they voted this way. They're the ones who general consensus is that they think people in the public are getting too "uppity". I've heard that from a lot of folks these past few weeks.
Well, I've seen time limits imposed from this board before, and I've seen them done away with. We'll see how long this one lasts.
The only thing I intend to say about Karl Rove resigning
The man is not and never has been a "genius". At most, Karl Rove is a thug who has devoted his entire life toward destroying others for the most shallow of reasons: political power. Whatever "success" he has enjoyed only came about because he exploited his lack of conscience more than he used any surplus of cleverness.
I won't say that Karl Rove is the source of most of the problems that this country is facing, as some will no doubt be fast to claim. But that Karl Rove was allowed to go as far as he did certainly is symptomatic of those problems. I see no reason to praise this accomplishment. Indeed, it says much about how seared our soul has become when many of us refuse to feel anything but dire shame at possibly admiring this man.
I imagine that Karl Rove is going to die someday: as an obscure, broken man with nothing more to show for his life other than the knowledge that he helped to hurt a lot of people, if not an entire country. After all, this is the man who helped engineer the biggest wholesale destruction of Constitutional rule of law in recent memory, to say nothing about pushing the drive for the war in Iraq and this administration's criminal refusal to secure our borders.
I defy anyone to tell me that there has been something decent and "Christian" about this man worth raising a toast in his honor.
The Burger King commercial with Krusty the Clown
"I'm behind on seven alimonies! I'm wearing paper bags for shoes!"
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Merv Griffin has passed away
Quite a few times (I even heard him once tell this to a reporter during a TV interview) Merv Griffin said that he wanted these words to someday be inscribed on his tombstone:after this commercial message!
I always thought that seemed to reflect a pretty good outlook on life.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
... Then maybe America doesn't need saving at all
Stu Bykofsky, a writer with the Philadephia Daily News, is seriously suggesting that the best way to "save" America is to have another attack like 9/11.
Two months ago, a Republican party official also said that America needs to be attacked again so that people would appreciate President Bush.
If "saving" America means not only anticipating, but openly hoping for the deaths of innocent people, then America does not deserve to survive at all.
I mean that.
Here is the biggest problem that I have with these self-styled "neoconservatives": they believe that America's strength is supposed to be in material wealth and military might. They don't give a damn about the value of individual life. How else can they sincerely consider it to be "good news" when it's reported that the death toll of American military is the lowest in several months... and not bother to ask themselves if even one life needlessly lost because of this fiasco is one life too many.
These people don't care if others die for America. So long as they aren't the ones having to do the fighting and the dying.
If America is a country where the many are deemed to be expendable assets for the betterment of the few, then that America does not merit survival. If we are ceasing to be a people that values the life of the individual and the rights that God has bestowed upon him or her, then there is no longer anything inherently good in America at all. Certainly not worth fighting or dying for.
TRANSFORMERS makes $300 million at U.S. box office
According to it's page at Box Office Mojo, Transformers had $299,633,598 in U.S. theater earnings as of Thursday, so it's safe to assume that it's crossed the $300 million domestic mark already. It's earned almost as much overseas, too.
And we still don't have that glorious orchestral score on CD yet! The petition to get an an album of the movie's soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky currently has 3,730 signatures.
"FLASH! AHHH-AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
So tonight (I guess it still counts as Friday night) the Sci-Fi Channel premiered its new show Flash Gordon, a 2007 update of Alex Raymond's classic comic book. And what I saw of it... wasn't good. Easily the worst thing was getting rid entirely of having Flash and Dale being taken to Mongo onboard Dr. Zarkov's rocket: in the 2007 show they get there by dimensional rift. I don't even want to begin to get into M.I.N.O. ("Ming In Name Only").
Here's something that's much better: the opening credits from 1980's big-screen movie Flash Gordon, with that amazing theme song by Queen!
Friday, August 10, 2007
Bush's "war czar" wants to consider a draft
From Breitbart.com...
Bush War Adviser Says Draft Worth a LookI will gladly support a draft. Provided that Jenna and Barbara and George P. Bush are the first to get inducted and put on armed patrol duty in Basra.Aug 10 06:25 PM US/Eastern
By RICHARD LARDNERWASHINGTON (AP) - Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday.
"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
"And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June ...
Or better yet, George W. Bush should suit up and take up the rifle on his own and set an example for the rest of us to follow. If Leonidas could lead 300 Spartans against two million Persians, certainly our own Commander in Chief can take point in his "surge" against a few dozen militants ... right?
Fiat folly
The Federal Reserve announced today that it's pumping $35 billion into the economy to help overcome the credit crunch from this subprime mortgage fiasco. That's on top of the $14 billion it's already thrown into the works over the past few weeks. The mess is also causing the European Community bank to loan out $135 billion and then yesterday the Bank of Japan reported that it was injecting over a trillion yen - that's $8.5 billion - also because of effects from the mortgage mess.
And then a few days ago China threatened to dump its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds, which would severely drive down the value of the dollar.
Bear in mind that for all intents and purposes, the only thing really propping up the dollar right now is its value as currency on the oil market.
In the past day or so I've heard some say that this almost looks like 1929 all over again. I disagree: it's looking much more like the economy of the South toward the end of the Civil War. At that point inflation was so bad, and the Confederate dollar so worthless, that if you wanted to buy a piece of bread from the baker then you'd give him your round Confederate coin and he'd cut out a piece of bread exactly that size.
Nobody can base an economy on credit and debt and expect it to persist for very long. And there's not that many ways that this current situation can really turn out okay, from where I'm sitting.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
More classic SESAME STREET: "The Dirtiest Town in the West"
Another great clip from the early days of Sesame Street. From 1979, said to have been inspired by Johnny Cash's appearance on The Muppet Show during which he sang "Ghost Riders in the Sky", here is the clever parody "The Dirtiest Town in the West" ...
Fahrenheit 101
That's how it it was at one point here in Reidsville, North Carolina this afternoon. I'm also hearing that some thermometers in the area reached as high as 107.
Today is very much the hottest weather that I can remember around here in quite a long time.
"NOT MY DAUGHTER ..." Molly Weasley group on Facebook
It's the most memorable line of 2007 ... and it wasn't spoken in a single film or television show.
You know what I'm talking about if you've read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's the five words that Molly Weasley screams out just before going full-tilt wacko in the final battle. The five words that are going to absolutely rock the house when the movie version comes out.
Well, if you're on Facebook and you're also a fan of that indomitable matriarch of the Weasley clan, check this out: the "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" Mrs. Weasley Appreciation Group ...
It already has over a hundred thousand members!
I will say it again: that is the single greatest line from a children's book ever. And you wanna know why? Because I don't know of anything else that's ever been said in a work of fiction that more perfectly reflects the virtue of parental love. In real life, a mother who loves her children seriously would do anything to protect them, just as Mrs. Weasley did. She would die for them and she would kill for them if it came to that. And she's not going to give a flying rat's butt about being polite about it, either.
When you think of it, Molly Weasley really is quite the avatar of Christian motherhood. I think it could even be said that Mrs. Weasley could be a symbol of the pro-life movement.
You can probably tell that I'm already looking forward to reading these books to our children someday :-)
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Rockingham County Board of Education members lashing out at free speech
An item has been placed on the agenda for the August 13th meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education that, if approved, would limit remarks by private citizens to three minutes or less during public comments portions of the monthly meetings.The Knight Shift blog received this information from a highly trusted source earlier this evening.
I've spent the past good bit of evening trying to find out more about this and I'm going to be making further inquiries come tomorrow morning.
As I've come to understand it, here's what's going down: at least one and possibly two members of the Board of Education placed this item on the agenda for the next meeting, and it's quite likely that this is coming as a reaction to what happened at the July 9th meeting. That was when the Board voted to rescind it's decision in April to implement school uniforms at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools beginning this fall. A group of citizens - and I was one of them - calling themselves P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress) dominated the public comments time during every meeting from April to July in protest of the policy. The July 9th meeting received considerable news coverage from most of the area's major media outlets because members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. announced that they were going to address the Board wearing costumes and black armbands as a visible sign of defiance to the policy (the vote for which had been based on dire faulty information).
It's already public knowledge that there are some on the board who have expressed disdain for citizens' right to free speech. One member of the Rockingham County Board of Education stated aloud during the July meeting that P.O.T.S.M.O.D. and others were "bad for the community" because they used "loud noise" which "changed public opinion" about the uniforms.
What kind of elected official, so entrusted to uphold the principles of the Constitution, would try to "shut up" the constituents that he or she is sworn to serve and represent on the board?
I'm working on finding out more about this, folks. If more info comes this way, I'll be sure to share it here. But I wanted to go ahead and get the word out: some people on the Rockingham County Board of Education are actively taking steps to drown-out the public's right to speak out and participate in government as concerned citizens.
I don't know of any better way of wrapping up this post, than to present one of my all-time favorite works of art: a painting by Norman Rockwell simply titled "Freedom of Speech" ...
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Life-sized Yoda statue is in our foster care
Look at what wound up in our living room earlier this afternoon...
This is a life-sized statue of Yoda, made of industrial-strength plastic resin. It is heavy and despite his realized stature it is positively huge! Without a doubt it's the biggest Yoda collectible that I've ever wound up having in my possession.
Here's the statue along with my vintage Yoda vinyl hand-puppet (circa 1981) and a "Star Wars Buddies" Yoda that Lisa gave me for Christmas a few years ago, to give you a sense of appreciating the scale of this thing (and that's an Artoo-Detoo cooler that Lisa got me for Christmas before last too, in the background)...
Not even these pictures can convey the full sense of how massive this statue is.
How did this thing come to be under our roof? Well, my good friend Brian Hodges AKA Darth Larry brought it over today. He's about to start a new job as a music professor at Mercer. A few weeks ago a friend of his from Orlando, Florida gave it to Brian, after her brother won it in a raffle. They didn't have anywhere to put Yoda so they let Brian have him. Well, Brian's original intent was to put Yoda in his office at the university and since the lightsaber blade pops out, Brian wanted Yoda to be wielding a cello bow instead. And that would have been terrific... except Yoda is so big that there wasn't room for him! So Brian asked me if I'd like to have it. I told him yes, on one condition: that it be understood that I am not taking permanent possession of this Yoda statue. Brian loves this way too much and I couldn't bear for him to relinquish total ownership of it. For the time being, Yoda is simply in our "foster care" until Brian can take him back for good.
In the meantime, life-sized Yoda is dominating our living room and I'm trying to figure out exactly how to give him bed and board. Brian's idea to give him a cello bow led me to come up with the idea of putting Yoda in Lisa's classroom (she teaches music at the nearby elementary school) with a conducing baton in his hand, and put up a little sign next to him reading "Music: The REAL Force". No doubt it would be a big hit with the kids!
So ummm... anyone else have other ideas about how to wisely use Yoda while he's here? :-)
Why are too many Christians so gullible?
Why do so many Christians, in spite of everything that their faith teaches, keep participating in such a corrupt political system? More to the point: How is it that too many professing believers in Christ still insist on supporting people like George W. Bush, who is anything but a shining example of Christian virtue?
That's what Dr. Chuck Baldwin is asking in his latest essay...
I believe one of the reasons, if not the main reason, that Christians are so gullible lies in a mistaken, and even dangerous, intrinsic trust of government. I hear and see this attitude expressed among my brethren constantly.There's much more to be found at the above link. And last week Dr. Baldwin also published "An Appeal To My Fellow Christians", which I also thought to be quite a good read.Part of this problem stems from an illogical and unscriptural interpretation of Romans Chapter Thirteen. Christians have been drilled (and dare I say, brainwashed?) into believing that government is endemically good and should be thoroughly trusted. Of course, this was not the belief of America's Founding Fathers, and neither was it the belief of Church Fathers.
In fact, our entire system of government is predicated upon a deep-rooted DISTRUST of government. Our three branches of government stem from the suspicion that no one branch could be thoroughly trusted and must have at least two other branches to help keep it in check. Yet, even that was not considered enough of a deterrent to combat the propensity of government to become tyrannical. What the separate branches of the federal government could not do to police each other, the states and people were to do. In other words, if Christians were really good Americans, they would distrust, not trust, their government.
Of all people, Christians should understand the fallen nature of man: that man in a sinful state is capable of anything (unless they attend a "Purpose Driven" church, of course). How is it, then, that they cannot seem to comprehend the evil machinations of people in high office? Are they totally taken in by the "I am a Christian" façade so many politicians use? Perhaps.
However, I believe that constant preaching from milquetoast preachers instructing their people to trust their government is the main culprit. The lack of discernment and courage of America's pulpits is frightening. They have produced a generation of Christians incapable of understanding, much less opposing, the manifestations of evil and oppression.
