Category: Uncategorized

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Google-Bomb Newsweek with “Korangate”

No commentary from me, just a reproduction of the post from Cao’s Blog

There’s commentary aplenty all over the blogosphere.  Just follow Cao’s instructions and Googlebomb NewsweAk with “ Korangate “

+++++++++++++++++From Cao’s Blog+++++++++++++++++

John C.A. Bambaneck

Newsweek needs to be held accountable that’s why I’m asking that everyone link (i.e. Googlebomb) to Newsweek with the word “ Korangate ” in the text.

Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate

OK, an update: Whizbang! has an interesting observation in “Newsweek’s Hail Mary?”  Yeh, I wouldn’t put it past NewsweAk trying to incite some Koran burning…  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 
(For the next few days, expect some of these canned posts, written up, saved and ready for posting with a few mods thrown in like this one. Probably not much over next few days’ll be current events related. Time. Other things.)

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The Cows

  This isn’t new, but it’s… cropping up again.  heh

For those of y’all who’ve experienced the so-called “worship wars” in your local churches, this lil cautionary tale:

 
“The Cows Are in the Corn”

(“First Verse”)

What is a chorus?

An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.

“Well,” said the farmer, “It was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns.”

“Praise choruses,” said his wife, “What are those?”

“Oh, they’re okay. They’re sort of like hymns, only different,” said the farmer.

“Well, what’s the difference?” asked his wife.

The farmer said, “Well it’s like this: If I were to say to you: ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well, that would be a hymn. If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:

 
‘Martha, Martha, Martha,
Oh, Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA,
the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black and white cows,
the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn,
are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, the CORN, CORN, CORN.’

Then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well that would be a praise chorus.”

(“Second Verse”)

What is a Hymn?

A young, new Christian went to his local church usually, but one weekend attended a church in the city. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.

“Well,” said the young man, “It was good. They did something different, however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs.”

“Hymns,” said his wife, “What are those?”

“Oh, they’re okay. They’re sort of like regular songs, only different,” said the young man.

“Well, what’s the difference?” asked his wife.

The young man said, “Well it’s like this: If I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well that would be a regular song.

If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:

‘Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry.
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth.
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
to the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.

For the way of the animals who can explain;
There in their heads is no shadow of sense.
Hearkenest they in God’s sun or his rain
unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.

Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight,
Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed.
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night,
they all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.

So look to that bright shining day by and by,
where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn,
where no vicious animal makes my soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.’

“Then, if I were to do only verses 1, 3, and 4, and do a key change on the last verse, well, that would be a hymn.”

(For the next few days, expect some of these canned posts, written up, saved and ready for posting. Probably not much over next few days’ll be current events related. Time. Other things.)

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On biblical illiteracy

[BUMP!—see update, below]
If the cornerstone is crumbling, what of the building it once upheld?
 
Interesting piece in The Weekly Standard . In his article “ Bible Illiteracy in America ,” David Gelernter outlines the historical impact the Bible has had on America and hints at what the future may hold for a biblically illiterate people. Thought-provoking.  A taste:
 
“THE GENEVA BIBLE became and remained the Puritans’ favorite. It had marginal notes that Puritans liked–but King James and the Church of England deemed them obnoxious. The notes were anti-monarchy and pro-republic–“untrue, seditious, and savouring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits,” the king said. Under his sponsorship a new Bible was prepared (without interpretive notes) by 47 of the best scholars in the land. The King James version appeared in 1611–intended merely as a modest improvement over previous translations. But it happened to be a literary masterpiece of stupendous proportions. Purely on artistic grounds it ranks with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare–Western literature’s greatest achievements. In terms of influence and importance, it flattens the other three.”
 
Oh, and Gelernter also briefly points out where to lay the axe to the common lies about Puritans, as well.  Of course, since most Americans are as historically illiterate as they are biblically illiterate, little of what Gelernter says will have much context for most folks.
 
A society with no sense of its own history will lurch from one faddish thought to another without any genuine critical faculty to assess what is good or ill. Gelenter’s article points out one of the important anchors we have cast away, resulting in just that very cultural character: rootless, we are “blown by every wind of teaching…”
 
Monday doldrums or simply recognizing the fact that my children will have to survive as adults in a land of illiterate pagans?
 
*sigh*
 
Buried deeply in the (very lengthy) afterward to the article are gems like this one:
 
“College students today are (spiritually speaking) the driest timber I have ever come across. Mostly they know little or nothing about religion; little or nothing about Americanism. Mostly no one ever speaks to them about truth and beauty, or nobility or honor or greatness. They are empty–spiritually bone dry–because no one has ever bothered to give them anything spiritual that is worth having. Platitudes about diversity and tolerance and multiculturalism are thin gruel for intellectually growing young people.”
 
Indeed.
 
[UPDATE] See Romeocat’s post today touching on this subject.
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Kipling Tuesday Today

A few thoughts not comprehensible to DUmmies and Moore-ons
 
Justice
Rudyard Kipling
October, 1918
 
Across a world where all men grieve
And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
The load our sons must bear.
 
Before we loose the word
That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen first the sword
Of Justice upon earth;
Or else all else is vain
Since life on earth began,
And the spent world sinks back again
Hopeless of God and Man.
 
A People and their King
Through ancient sin grown strong,
Because they feared no reckoning
Would set no bound to wrong;
But now their hour is past,
And we who bore it find
Evil Incarnate hell at last
To answer to mankind.
 
For agony and spoil
Of nations beat to dust,
For poisoned air and tortured soil
And cold, commanded lust,
And every secret woe
The shuddering waters saw —
Willed and fulfilled by high and low —
Let them relearn the Law:
That when the dooms are read,
Not high nor low shall say: —
“My haughty or my humble head
Has saved me in this day.”
 
That, till the end of time,
Their remnant shall recall
Their fathers’ old, confederate crime
Availed them not at all:
That neither schools nor priests,
Nor Kings may build again
A people with the heart of beasts
Made wise concerning men.
Whereby our dead shall sleep
In honour, unbetrayed,
And we in faith and honour keep
That peace for which they paid.
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SF-180 SF-180 SF-180 SF-180 SF-180 SF-180

C’mon, now.  Give the guy a break, eh?
 
I mean, Jean Fraud sKerry‘s just like any other working stiff, right? He’s got a job, ya know.  He has priorities.  First, he has to get his Senate attendance record above it’s usual 22%, and then he’ll have time to dash his signature off on an SF-180 like he promised on national tv 107 days ago!!!
 
All in good time…
 
 
I wonder why the good senator hasn’t made good on his promise yet. Perhaps he’s having trouble getting the form ? To help him out, you could fax him a copy of the form. It’s only 3 pages, and is available online here .
 
Here are the fax numbers for the senator’s offices:
 
Washington D.C. – (202) 224-8525
Boston, MA – (617) 248-3870
Springfield, MA – (413) 736-1049
Fall River, MA – (508) 677-0275
Just download it , print and fax.  And check the suggestions for a polite cover letter.
 
 

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Ahhh! What a difference!

NPR vs. “Anybody else”
 
The Anybody Else I have chosen for my classical music radio is… not American.  Yup.  Check it out at 103.7 FM on your dial… if you happen to be in Queensland, Australia. Otherwise, stream their entire programming day via 4MBS Classic FM.
 
One really cool program I’ve missed on the radio stations available here in America’s Third World Countyâ„¢ is “Adventures in Music with Dr. Karl Haas”—a really fun (for me) music history and critique program.  Not all that taxing, but still fun.  Available at 9:00 a.m. Queensland time (work out the time differential to where you may be; for me it’s minus 15 hours from program time there).
 
If you have broadband and good sound card/speakers, it’s as good as FM radio.
 
Who needs NPR? (OK, they don’t carry Car Talk, so? 🙂
 
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Coincidence

That these stories appear in the Britpress on the same day is coincidence… isn’t it?
 
First this story telling of the link between a woman having an abortion and risks to later children she may want to carry to term. “Revealed: how an abortion puts the next baby at risk”.
 
Now this one describing an interesting phenomenon (or is it just a statistical blip?): children in developing countries beginning puberty at earlier and earlier ages. “Why puberty now begins at seven”.  Huh.
 
The first seems a case of cosmic justice, the second seems more like a case of cosmic balance of the first.  (But of course, that’s just me doing the human thing: looking for meaning… or creating it where there may be none.)
 
Story #1: h.t. Carol Liebau.
 
Story #2: h.t. Harry Irwin, posting at Jerry Pournelle’s Current Mail.
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Dandelions

A brief exposition on Matthew 6: 28-29
 
“Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Weeds are mostly in the eye (and heart) of the beholder. Let me submit for your consideration the lowly dandelion.  Was there ever a more beautiful yellow, a more deliciously luscious green? What a feast for the eyes!
 
And yet, our culture considers the dandelion to be a pest plant; not merely useless, but something to be eradicated. *sigh* Useless? Every part (excepting the seed puffball) of the dandelion is edible.  The greens cleaned and steamed or boiled are not only tasty but highly nutritious.  The root, after cleaning, peeling and then blanching, boiling or roasting is also highly nutritious and useful in many ways. And even the yellow bloom is nutritious and a treat for both the eye and the tastebuds in salads.
 
And what can I say of dandelion wine?
 
🙂
 
And, as much as our society spends to eradicate this nutritious food and lovely flowering plant, it thrives in spite of all the poisons thown its way.  And have you ever attempted to pull a dandelion to get rid of the “weed”?  Unless you get every last piece of the root, it’s more than likely to simply grow back.
 
Lilies of the field? Nah. 
 
“Consider the dandelions how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
 
No matter how our society’s warped values may deem the dandelion to be an obnoxious weed, children who are as yet unpolluted by the depraved value system that would deem such a radiently bold and beautiful flower a weed, bring their mothers glad bouquets of dandelions every spring.
 
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NYT: Mouthpiece for… NPR

And you thought I was going to say “Mouthpiece for terrorists,” didn’t you?
 
heh
 
This NYT article presents the pouts and whines of LLM’s at NPR concerning CPB monitoring for bias as sensible responses to “editorial interference” in NPR programming. *yawn*  You know, NPR and it’s bastard sister, PBS, could become genuine “Public Media” if both organizations simply went cold turkey and stopped sucking at the taxpayers’ teats.  If they have something the market wants, if there’s a big enough audience to support rtheir political agendas (or even musical tastes), then they’ll succeed.  Otherwise, they can just die on the vine, for all I care.
 
(I guess I’d miss the silliness—and ocassional usefulness—of Car Talk, but since none of the NPR stations I can get carry “Adventures in Good Music with Dr Karl Haas”—I can listen to him via an Australian station that streams his show, anyway—I can probably even get along without Click and Clack, the one remaining show worth listening to on any NPR station in this region of the country. I can buy better performances of classical music than are featured on NPR, anyway. And anything that’s really good on PBS is either later shown on another—cable—channel or has information duplicated elsewhere, so who needs PBS?)
 
Cut the government purse strings entirely. Let them compete and live or die by their content.
 
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“Southpark Conservatives”

Hand-in-hand with biblical illiteracy
 
Diana West writes today of “Replacing duty and honor with ‘South Park’“—and if you don’t go read it right now, I shall order you flogged!  Oh, wait.  I’m not the Supreme Ruler of All, yet.  The flogging will have to be deferred until I ascend my throne.  Heck, I’ll offer you amnesty, if you’ll just go ahead and CLICK Now.
 
🙂
 
The article describes actions, people whose sense of duty and honor are foreign to our cynical, jaded culture today,
 
“But such was life before the “Desperate Housewife” and the “South Park” conservative, a time when the cultural mainstream — the all-enveloping mass media — treated duty and honor like dependable anchors rather than balls-and-chains.”