hemingway, bush, and really bad books

I was up late two nights ago, when to my surprise I started getting IM's. I should explain that it's a given that I don't get IM's; I'm over 30. No one instant messages me — or almost no one. It was a friend of mine from one of those places God Hath Forgot, one who has developed a razor wit and a great deal of artistic skill. For the sake of this transcript, I shall call her by her Indian name, Walks in the Rain

On New Orleans legacy of President Bush
Dave: Natasha's brother Kevin lives in New Orleans. He and his wife were told "Evacuate or have ID with you so we know whose body it is."
WitR: I guess they weren't taking any chances after Katrina
Dave: Can't blame them. That'll be an albatross around Bush's neck about as long as Iraq will be. Twin failures.
WitR: is there room for another albatross around his neck? he's got a flock already
Dave: It depends. How many arrows does he have in that damn crossbow of his anyway?
WitR: secretly Cheney is his living quiver. That's why he always looks so uncomfortable.
Dave: Ah. The old +5 Quiver of Cheney. Guaranteed to hit an albatross at every turn.
WitR: if not quail.
Dave: And I guess that makes the GOP the crew of dead souls manning the ship.
(Clearly Cheney has a cursed -5 shotgun of birding)

On Samuel Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and other great literature
WitR: I have not read the poem since ninth grade and just barely remember that the crew is dead
Dave: For shame. I read the book just a few months ago to my kids.
WitR: well, i tend to forget things that i associate with ernest hemingway and my ex's music collection
Dave: You associate "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" with Hemingway!?
I think I'm going to be sick, just imagining how Hemingway would tell the story.
WitR: no, i associate everything i was forced to read for school with ernest hemingway
Dave: "The ancient mariner had been wounded in the war, and had never been able to have sex since."
It was assigned in freshman lit. I enjoyed it anyway.
"her hair was black, her lips were red, her skin was white as leprosy"
WitR: "There was a man. He shot a bird. Everyone died. The wind was cold."
you realize that i had more than one book assigned by hemingway, and yet we never got around to discussing his BLATANTLY obvious misogynistic issues
Dave: Well, you did go to a Christian high school. Misogyny is a fabrication of feminazis, don't you know.
WitR: no, really! we like women! we just don't think they should do anything that doesn't involve uteruses.
Dave: Unless their husbands or fathers tell them to.

On the coherency of the Inernet and those who write therein:
Dave: OK, I just read so-and-so's post. I can't tell if he's agreeing with you or dismissing your post as the first wave of analyseing (sic) Palin, or fluf. (sic)
His creative spelling doesn't make him easier to understand.
WitR: i can deal with creative spelling because my college roommate had a learning disability. It's the creative syntax and punctuation that throws me off.
Dave: If it were just creative spelling, I could manage. But he's got the syntax and punctuation too -- not to mention unclear and underdeveloped thoughts -- and the total leaves me at a loss.
WitR: I think he may just be a malfunctioning turing program
Dave: On the other hand, his "be-bop" post makes perfect sense.
WitR: maybe the closer he gets to agreeing with me, the better he writes
Dave: Doubtless that's true of us all.
The Buddha himself gained enlightenment, started agreeing with you, and wrote flawlessly.
WitR: i think if i'm the pinnacle of human development, someone is playing a serious prank on humanity
Dave: This is revelation to you?
WitR: merely stating the obvious for the elucidation of humankind
it's Zen
for my next trick i will clap one hand

On the latest attempts at the Great End-Times novel:
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com <-- egads="" horrible.="" looks="" p="" this="">Dave: Wow. How on earth do you find these things?
WitR: facebook sidebar ad, actually. god only knows why it showed up for me, usually i get olivia cruises and photography classes
Dave: You realize I have to buy you a copy of the book for Christmas now. Along with "The Eye of Argon."
WitR: do it, and i'll send your daughters a starter beading kit
Davw: We'll add the beading kit to all the other beading kits they have. You'll have to do better than that to threaten me.
WitR: curses. foiled again. st. bernard puppy?
Dave: Evangeline's allergic to dogs. Sorry. "it was inconceivable, but it was becoming clear that the earth's rotation was inexplicably slowing down" It's that whole lost day with Joshua all over again! Thank God NASA already has it figured out. "What happens if it keeps slowing down?" asked the President.
WitR: i like how the Senate chaplain is now in high-level security briefings
Dave: Good to know that Bush is still at the helm when Armageddon comes. "Doctor Wang removed a pipe from his coat pocket and began to fumble with it. He could not conceal the fact that his hands were shaking" Oh, thank God, it;s just his hands shaking. For a moment I thought he was going to get footloose.
WitR: oh man. read the page on lucifer's DNA it involves Nephilim, naturally
Dave: Of course. I hadn't realized it, but that whole tradition has roots in the book of Enoch. Pullman drew on a lot of that for "His Dark Materials."
WitR: carey builds on a lot of angelology for the kushiel series, actually more of an alternate-universe setup there
Dave: Where's the page on Lucifer's DNA?
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com/luciferDNA.htm
Dave: I have to say, so far it looks better than "Left Behind."
WitR: that's about like saying that Wendy's is better than McDonalds
Dave: I didn't say it was high praise.
WitR: honestly, reading the setup, it COULD be interesting, in THEORY, but sadly, the fact that the author is a Christian totally blows its chances of doing so
Dave: His explanation of the book and Uizhun-Tabriz actually is pretty interesting. Too bad he didn't write the book that well. I hate to agree, but you're right.
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com/StoneTablets.htm
Dave: The only good writers in the Christian market are all dead.
WitR: that's because no living author with a sense of decency would be caught dead in the Christian market if they're any good at all they have a major market presence anyway
Dave: "The deciphered message of this tablet is: 14q43 215860406 215882973" My life has been transformed.
WitR: yes! now you know God's mastercard number.
Dave: Alas, they won't accept the cattle on a thousand hills down at the supermarket.
WitR: yeah, but think of the amazon bill you could run up with it
Dave: Adds a whole new meaning to "Forgive us our debts," doesn't it?
WitR: indeed, though you have to wonder what God's credit score would be satan's is obviously 666 so given numerology, that would make jesus' a respectable 777
Dave: In this economy, it's probably dropped. Although Satan probably qualifies for a Bush tax cut. Jesus, being working class, it SOOL, being as he's a shameless grifter and leech on the welfare state. I bet his credit rating is in tatters.
WitR: well, i'd imagine rather that he has little to no credit history, never having the wherewithal to apply for any
Dave: Where have you been the last twelve months? That's no impediment to getting financing.
WitR: yeah, but whenever he applies for a mortgage he keeps getting denied when he uses a house in Heaven as collateral >>#That Lucifer was a mortal—and therefore had DNA. This fact is also in the Bible.<< Of course! I totally learned about Lucifer's DNA in sunday school.
Dave: Sure. It's right before the passage that talks about the collapse of the vapor canopy sending all the animals into the first-ever hibernative state.
Surely you remember that.
WitR: unfortunately there actually was a vapor canopy entry in the world history / bible class i took in high school
Dave: Well of course there was. You didn't think I was writing that by accident, did you?

Why are we paying attention to what Pat Robertson says?

Pat Robertson is an idiot. You know that, I know that. Everybody knows that. So why in the world do reporters still think he's worth quoting, and report on the crazy things he says on air?

Robertson's latest run with run-at-the-mouth disease was to warn the people of Dover, Pa., that they're risking God's wrath because of the way they voted in their recent school board election.

Dover, which has received worldwide news coverage because of the recent court hearings over the school board's decision to teach Intelligent Design alongside evolution, voted out eight board members who had voted in favor of that new policy.

So, says Robertson, if disaster descends upon Dover, the people there should appeal to Charles Darwin for help, because they have poked their finger in God's eye, and voted him out of town. God's patience, Robertson says, is exhausted.

Quite frankly, who cares what Robertson said? In the past few years, this guy created an international flap by calling for the assassination of a foreign leader, he suggested detonating a nuclear warhead at Foggy Bottom, he warned of divine judgment on Florida, and he joined Jerry Falwell in blaming 9-11 on liberals, homosexuals and abortionists.

Robertson opens his jaws and says ridiculous things so often that I've lost track of how many times The Wittenburg Door has made him a favored object of ridicule.

Robertson is good for an idiotic soundbite, but these comments place him well outside the range of mainstream Christianity in America. Conservative, liberal or moderate, most Christians view Robertson with the sort of embarrassment we all feel toward our drunk Uncle Buck at Thanksgiving. We'd like to forget about him entirely, but like the proverbial village idiot, he keeps reminding us.

So, unless the media is going to start using David Duke as a spokesman for conservatism, Gus Hall as a spokesman for liberalism, and Osama bin Laden as a spokesman for Islam, perhaps it's time to recognize Robertson for what he is: a bonehead with enough business savvy to keep himself in a really big pulpit, long past the time he had anything worth saying.

If the media want someone to speak for Christians, can I suggest Jim Wallis of Sojourners? The man's authentic, articulate and is fairly representative of the large and emerging Religious Left here in America.

Please. Anyone but Pat Robertson.


Copyright © 2005 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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i love writing humor

This is from an upcoming Brothers Grinn mailing, pending any changes or additions by my co-smartass. I can almost imagine someone in the oil industry trying to put this sort of spin on the current state of gas prices:

POLL: AMERICANS LIKE HIGH GAS PRICES

Americans not only enjoy paying $3 or more per gallon at the pump, many of them would like to pay more, a recent survey has found.

The survey, conducted by ExxonMobil, asked viewers if they would prefer to spend their life savings on gas over the course of six months, or if they would rather be locked in a closet overnight with Ernest Borgnine while he recites his lines from "McHale's Navy" using the voice of Miss Piggy.

The survey showed that 84 percent of all male motorists prefer to spend their extra money on gas, with the number dropping significantly, to 4 percent, if they were locked in the closet with Scarlet Johannsen instead of with Ernest Borgnine.

The number of women who preferred to spend their money on gas hovered around 80 percent whether they were locked in a closet with Ernest Borgnine or with Scarlett Johannsen. The number of women who would rather pay at the pump rose sharply to 98 percent when the alternative was to be locked up with Ashton Kuchner.

"America will never allow itself to be locked in a closet with anyone," said analyst Ron Milton of Catasauqua University in eastern Pennsylvania. "It's our right to squander natural resources, waste our wealth and poison the air. Buy more SUVs! We're Americans."

Survey results have a margin of error of plus or minus 50 percent.

BICYCLISTS JOIN EVOLUTION DEBATE

A group of Kansas bicyclists have joined the debate in that state over whether to teach Intelligent Design as a viable scientific theory alongside evolution.

The group, a wide mix of professionals who have decided to save gas by riding their bikes to work, have rallied together under the banner "Natural Selection, not Intelligent Design." The bicyclists are taking their message to the state's hoghways, where they expect to get the widest possible audience.

"It's the only way I know how to get to work anyway," explained Robin O'Connor, as she pedaled her bike onto a busy interstate and was immediately hit by a tractor trailer going 90 mph.

So far, about 40 percent of the group's founders have given their lives for the cause. The remaining members explain that they will continue to carry the mission forward until they have proven that natural selection has guided the human evolutionary process by eliminating those unfit for survival, such as those who ride their bikes on highways with no shoulders.

Despite their unorthodox method of argument, their efforts have received attention from the Kansas State Board of Education, and caused a few members to reconsider their position.

"I had always thought that life was so complex and wonderful that it had to be the work of an intelligent designer," said one board member who has supported the Intelligent Design position in the past. "But these idiots sure are making a good argument against any intelligence being involved in any way in their origin."

Reassessing: Genesis as the foundation of Scripture

I'm definitely sliding into the Abyss here. The opening chapters of Genesis are foundational for what follows -- Paul in fact builds his entire argument in Romans on the need for Christ on the sin of Adam and the entry of sin into the world.

But I'm not convinced that one needs to go with a literal interpretation of those chapters to get that foundation. The Bible was written in a culture that prized storytelling as a means of conveying Truth. That doesn't mean the stories necessarily are absolutely factual in every detail. It'd pretty damn near impossible anyway. The synoptic gospels quote the same stuff -- the Q source, for lack of a better way to describe it -- with minor alterations like "kingdom of God" for "kingdom of heaven," end stories at different places, and vary on the number of people present at one scene or another.

A friend of mine once told me that the "Literal Six Days" doctrine is only about 400 years old. I don't know whether that's true or not, but it's unlikely to affect my thinking in any way on the matter.

When pressed, I generally go with creationism and an historical Fall because these match my paradigm better. I lack substantive proof either way of life's origins.

creationism gone wild

Three fun ways to fit dinosaurs into the biblical account of creation:

1. The dinosaurs were destroyed in the events described in Genesis 1:1: "Now the earth became formless and empty, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." In this reading, we have no idea how many years passed and what got fossilized.
   
   
2. Dinosaurs were created on Day Six with the rest of the animals in the Hebrew cosmogony, co-existed with man in the Antedeluvian world and went extinct some time after the Flood. The tremendous pressures brought on by a worldwide Deluge, particularly with the seismic activity mentioned in Genesis 7 are more than enough according to hydrogeologists to fossilize organic matter and to convert other organic matter into fossil fuels. I've heard some people link Leviathan in the book of Job with a dinosaur.
   
   
3. Dinosaurs are still not extinct. People who hold to this view usually tie dinosaurs into critters like the Loch Ness monster or other big creatures in heavily forested parts of the world. Scott Adams, to my knowledge, is the only person to suggest they live in the basements of houses and give wedgies to people.

And of course there are the really silly views that dinosaurs never existed in the first place and God either created their fossilized remains to test our faith, or that the whole thing is made up by paleontologists eager to bolster their standing in the scientific community. (Probably some truth to that second part, actually; they'll proclaim a whole new species based on one or two bones and fail to account for the variation within a single species today. Heck, humans range from under four feet tall to over eight feet. And dogs? Don't even get me started.)

There is a view that holds that there was a pre-Adamic race of humanity, or perhaps reptilian beings, who were destroyed between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, where the Hebrew can be rendered "Now the earth became formless and void." There is much basis in Scripture for this belief as saying the "unclean spirits" in the New Testament are angels who rebelled against God and were cast down. It's just that the latter doctrine is more widely accepted than the first.

On that tangent, I've heard it said that the "unclean spirits" Jesus was casting out of people were nonaligned spirits; i.e., they had taken no sides in the war between heaven and hell and are being forced to decide as the gospel advances. And I've also heard that they were -- are you ready for this? -- the eternal spirits of members of a pre-Adamic race!