Onward Christian Jihad....

This is an television ad that is being broadcast by the group Answers in Genesis.
Here is how they describe themselves:

An apologetics (i.e., Christianity-defending) ministry, dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively…we also desire to train others to develop a biblical worldview, and seek to expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas, and its bedfellow, a “millions of years old” earth (and even older universe).

They probably aren't meaning to imply in their ad that an athiest is going to take a gun and shoot some one in the face, but it makes a striking image, doesn't it?
Supposedly, their beef is concerning Darwinism and the idea of evolution, but how is that related to the image in the commercial?
What is implied is that a person who doesn't accept their creationist doctrine and chooses not to accept their beliefs is apparently with out morals, outside the law and could go on a killing rampage.
They have been using the image of the boy with the gun on billboards, as well.

Afer the murder of Dr. George Tiller and the rationalized gloating over the act by the evangelical fundamentalists, perhaps, Answers in Genesis needs to rethink their approach before someone interprets their message the wrong way and uses it as a justification to prove their faith.........

The Resurrection Of The Christ Within You

Book: The Second Coming Of Christ: The Resurrection Of The Christ Within You, A Revelatory Commentary On The Original Teachings Of Jesus.

Here is a critique of the work:

"The Second Coming of Christ" takes the reader on a revelatory journey through the four Gospels, verse by verse, into the real meaning of Jesus' long misunderstood teachings.

The most eagerly awaited book from Paramahansa Yogananda in over 50 years,'The Second Coming of Christ' takes the reader on a revelatory journey through the four Gospels, verse by verse, into the real meaning of Jesus long misunderstood teachings. Dispelling centuries old misconceptions and dogma, this monumental work is destined to leave an indelible mark on the way the world views the teachings of Jesus Christ.

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I was toying with an alternate title of this post, something like:  The Dozen Dullards of Jesus, or, The 12 Cretins of Christ.  They were an ignorant lot, weren't they? Only Judas seemed to have 'a clue' about what the gig was all about- and he was demonized for it.

Today, some 2000 years later, there still are Cretins of Christ all around us, even living in our neighborhoods!  They, like the 12, cannot comprehend the real message that Jesus of Nazareth spent his last three years trying to communicate:  the "Resurrection" is within you. 

He said it.  Several times.  

Paramahansa Yogananda, as his name indicates, is from India. He believes that Jesus visited India in those 'hidden years' between age 12 and thirty. Surely he also visited Egypt- beyond his cameo appearance as a child. To which other places he traveled is only conjecture but, clearly to those who 'see,' his spiritual sense was most certainly broader than that available to the residents of Galilee.

Here's the conundrum, though.  Why on earth did he pick those twelve dullards as companions along the journey?  They were as dumb as dirt.  They never 'got it.'  They had no clue what Jesus was talking about.  

My newly formed hypothesis is that Jesus used them as thugs- for self-defense- body guards. 

Radical idea?

If so, then, why were the dimwits 'chosen' by Jesus.  He spent three years, 24/7 with them, 1000 days and nights and look what they 'learned' during their close encounter with 'the master.'

Nada. Zero. They failed the 'proficiency test' miserably.

Body guards.  Think about it.

Left-brained Dominance is Passe

Lawyers. Accountants. Computer programmers. That's what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up. But Mom and Dad were wrong. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of "left brain" dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which "right brain" qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate. That's the argument at the center of a provocative and original book, which uses the two sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the contours of our times.

Daniel H.Pink is the author of the book, A Whole New Mind. It's subtitle is, 'Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future.'  And here's why:

Pink references three prevailing trends pointing towards the future of business and the economy: Abundance (consumers have too many choices, nothing is scarce), Asia (everything that can be outsourced, is) and Automation (computerization, robots, technology, processes).

All of  past 'success' was developed from left-brain thinking.  The future lies in creativity- right-brain thinking. 

Pink outlines six essential senses:

Design - Moving beyond function to engage the sense.
Story - Narrative added to products and services - not just argument. Best of the six
senses.
Symphony - Adding invention and big picture thinking (not just detail focus).
Empathy - Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and intuition.
Play - Bringing humor and light-heartedness to business and products.
Meaning - Immaterial feelings and values of products.

Try to discuss this in the Board Room and they will think you're nuts. Yet, look what has just happened in the General Motor's Board Room. Old, left-brain thinking. Dead enders, as Rumsfeld often said.

Is America ready for the right-brainers to 'take over?' Clearly our political system is not- way too much left-brain bloviation. And not the church either- too steeped in past glory and ancient texts. Schools? Well, there's an interesting concept way-too late for its time. Innovation in schools has historically been frowned upon by the tight-assed conformists who believe the old canard that begins, "It was good enough for me..."

As Barack Obama is left-handed, he is naturally right-brained. One wonders if his brain-style will catch on here in America which may promote Mr. Pink's six essential senses. However, he will be met by much resistance to any divergent thinking. He already has. Yet we can always hope. After all, look at what recent left-brain 'leaders' have gotten us into.

My Unauthorized Biography

I am clearly flattered that people have begun my biography while I am on this side of the grass. Interestingly, the authors do not know me, nor have we ever spoken. I would welcome a biographical piece from family members or close friends, although to my knowledge, it remains yet unwritten.

What can one know from reading blog posts and comments? Blogging often reveals mere wisps of information about the author, ideas and fantasies which swirl around in one's head. In fact, I find that blogging customarily releases one's learned inhibitions, much as does a shot of gin or a puff on weed, neither of which I have attempted. There are as many varieties of blogs as there are authors thereof; some are crisp and interesting, while others fester in idiotic personal minutia and parochial subject matter.

Why do people choose to read a blog, this blog? Beats me all to hell. I dabble in the blogosphere much like smorgasbord-ing, tasting, rejecting, and occasionally returning. Mostly, I confess, singular visits.

When I was directed to a blog which I seldom visit any longer and found a rather personal dossier about me, I was stunned. At last check [haz-mat protected, of course] there were 19 comments under a thread dedicated to me. Isn't that special.

Did you hear the one about the three fundamentalist christian ladies who walked into a bar? Well, i can't remember the punch line but 'the exits' sticks in my mind.

I am being skewered by the Righteous Sisters, no relation to the brothers. Who knew? It's all quite hilarious- it always is when one fundamentalist christian opens her mouth, but can you imagine the comedy routine when all three are ad libbing? I never knew so much about myself until I went [nose plug] there. My sinfulness was on display, like a B-movie. I have sinned exceedingly in thought and word; I am to spend all of Eternity not being consumed by the fires around me, while the trio look down from their heavenly perch and, with a Cheshire grin,  give me the finger.

So goes life in the big city. Another day, another sinner damned to Hell.

Deo gratias.

Oh, thou yeasty knotty-pated moldwarp!

"Oh, thou yeasty knotty-pated moldwarp! Come hither that I might foul thy ruttish whey-face!" - Act 3, Scene IV, Morello.

Shakespeare clearly knew Elizabethan English well and could hurl insults with artful vocabulary which, today, is fairly obscure. Nonetheless, the sound of it shouts mastery.

Words like 'pribbling' and 'qualling' drip with feistiness as do 'lumpish' and 'gorbellied.' When Shakespeare needed just the right word for his character to say, he invented it. Some have stuck, others not. 'Lumpish' did, but lo, not the other three.

Language is nicely malleable, although for the tight-assed purists, it remains frozen in time. Frozen, one might note, in irregularity and daftness. Take the phrase, "If you was going..." To most, it cringes the ear like ill-angled chalk upon the blackboard. Yet, in Shakespeare's time, that phrase was commonly used. It, in fact, follows the rules of grammar perfectly. 'You' in the above phrase is singular as is 'was.' Thus when 'you' and 'were' are joined, the 'rule' is broken.

How about the following: "I'm sloppy, are I not?" 'Are' is plural while 'I' is singular. Quite right and clearly a grammatical error. Except that it is perfectly 'right' to say, "I'm sloppy, aren't I?"

Rules or commonly-held colloquialisms. Which is correct? Or does 'correctness' lie in one's common use of the language? Here in northern Ohio we often drop the preposition 'to' in spoken English. My mother would commonly ask me to "go the store" for her. 'Can' rather than 'will' as well as 'might' rather than 'may' are two other colloquial norms here. 'Greasy' is pronounced with an 's' sound here, but 50 miles south, near Lima,Ohio, it is a 'z' sound.

"It's your turn to do the dishes." How does one 'do' dishes? Residents of the city, Toledo, most often say the name with two schwa sounds for the o's and a long vowel sound of the 'e,' rendering something like Tuh-lee-dah. We sweep the dirt with a broom or we 'va-kume' it up. Apparently the word 'vacuum' both a noun and verb but 'broom' is only a noun. Here we use buckets of water rather than pails and we fry eggs in pans, not skillets. We sound the 'e' in eggs 'eh' rather than 'ag.' We do not distinguish the sound of 'Mary,' 'marry,' and 'merry,' but there is a clear difference between are and hour. We note the silent 'g' in singer but often slide over the articulated 'g' in finger. For breakfast we drink orn-jews, enough is commonly, ah-nuf and Tuesday is tooz dee.

Anuf of this.

Our Country Deserves Better

"Our Country Deserves Better" is much more than a trite shibboleth- it is a newly formed political action committee. Nice name, great idea and surely a concept at which few would find fault. Politicians have always been a motley crew, a dicey junta who purport to do good but who, all too often, end up doing what's best for their reelection campaign treasure chest.

Enter this new political PAC with a hopeful name. But wait! There is already one problem- it is a Republican PAC. Nothing wrong with a group of Republicans wanting to fumigate Congress except [and pathetically] they want to focus their fumigation hoses exclusively on Democrats.

Yes, its the dastardly Democrats who deserve extermination while the same class of Republicans will receive donations to their election war chests.

...so goes politics in America.

Black Aurora

The Aurora Borealis is a fascinating sight to behold perhaps because,  for most humans, it does not appear in their sky.  I recall one crisp evening of my youth being called outside to witness a wisp of odd colored light in the evening sky and was told that it was the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.  I don't know if it was, but it sparked some primeval meme inside of me- one of those awe moments.

One can imagine the grand awe of early humans who ventured into the northern latitudes suddenly coming upon a bright reddish-green glow in the sky above in the dark of night.  Surely it must have conjured up thoughts of ghosts, monsters, and gods.

Yet one can only speculate what their reaction would have been to a black aurora- an even rarer type of anti-aurora.  Surely, demons and the Devil himself must have caused such an ominously odd-colored sky.  No doubt, at the first sight of such a baleful sight fires would have been lit and chanting would have begun to ward off those evil spirits.  Of course, the fire and song always worked; soon the blackness faded away.

How could early humans know anything other than sinister speculation regarding their darkening nighttime skies?  A clever shaman could enhance his reputation by incanting the 'good spirits'during this time, knowing full-well that, no matter what strange babble came from his mouth, soon the darkness would fade away.

Using data from four Cluster Spacecraft orbiting the Earth has now likely found the secret: black auroras are actually anti-auroras. In normal auroras, electrons and/or predominantly negatively charged particles fall toward Earth along surfaces of constant magnetic field. They ionize the Earth's atmosphere on impact, causing the bright glows. In black anti-auroras, however, negatively charged particles are sucked out from the Earth's ionosphere along adjoining magnetic field lines. These dark anti-auroras can climb to over 20,000 kilometers and last for several minutes.

It must have been frightening to have been a child living during those 'dark' times with myth, superstition, ghosts and odd and dangerous spirits floating all around, waiting to take hold of of you if you were not cautious.  I wonder if parents then did the 'Santa' trick on these children, suggesting that, if they didn't kowtow to the exact demands of their parents, the sky-goblins would grab them and take them away into the dark beyond.

Lucky for us we live in times of enlightening science.  Each day, scientists bring us new insights into the 'scary' world in which we live and, with each new discovery, our fear, our anxiety, our superstitious thoughts subside.

How Green is Your Mouth?

If it's green, use the men's room; if red, the ladies' room.  ScienceDaily (May 28, 2009) — Our brain is wired to identify gender based on facial cues and coloring, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vision. Psychology Professor Frédéric Gosselin and his Université de Montréal team found the luminescence of the eyebrow and mouth region is vital in rapid gender discrimination.

"Studies have shown that an androgynous face is considered male if the skin complexion is redder, and considered female if the complexion is greener," says Dupuis-Roy. "However, it is the opposite for the mouth. A woman's mouth is usually redder. Our brain interprets this characteristic as female."

Thus, green replaces the color blue for boys, while the girls can still claim red/pink as their own. Is that why red lipstick looks so great on women?

One More Litigation Threat

It occurs in regular cycles like lunar eclipses.  Today I received yet another threat of legal action against me. This is either the 3rd or 4th one over the past two years- from the same person.  Here it is:  Better stop it, Muck-maker. This is grounds for a civil suit. I'm saving it as evidence. 

Interestingly, it was under the thread, "Gosh, you sound stupid!"  Of course, it was not I who said 'you sound stupid!' but rather the same person who threatened me with a civil law suit.

Confused?  Well, so am I, but then, one never knows what rolls around inside of one's head.  This same author send a sarcastic comment to me when I posted the 'stupid' thread, which read,  Thanks for defining "stupid" and providing a big example in this post. IT describes you to a "t"

There you have it readers: a case of total confusion.  But wait, as the infomercials always say, there's more: Aha --so an insult stung, did it?  Maybe you should be more reluctant with YOUR insults

Who can decipher all of this?  is there a psychiatrist in the house???

Imagine

The classic John Lennon piece,Imagine,, has a haunting beat and charming melody. Yet the lyrics raise the song to the highest level. 'Brotherhood, peace, sharing, love of neighbor, living as one' are classic themes of all religious faiths and of civil rights movements throughout the world.

There are some critics, however, of the song because Lennon asks to imagine no heaven, no hell, and no religion.  The PBS program, NOVA, presented an historical collection of film chronicling the initial 25  years of space exploration.  It was well-done and inspiring.  Yet, when some science teachers showed it in their classrooms, some fundamentalist parents objected to it.  Why?  Because, at the very end of the film, while the U.S. and U.S.S.R space modules made that historic connection 500 miles above earth- during the Cold War- John Lennon's Imagine was played in the background.

Imagine that.