animals fled in advance of tsunami

tip of the hat to tigerhawk

heart-wrenching photographs in MSNBC slide show

80,000 + dead

survivors who were scuba diving off the coast describe how they survived the tsunami...this evening on cnn...

"w" announces 35 million in aid with "more to come"...

thousands of children missing or orphaned...

extraordinary amateur videos of the waves coming in, sweeping people away...

"unrelenting grief"

"life's the adventure" read by the author

life's the adventure

life's the adventure

come with me

take my hand

i'll show you the way

i am the light

to mark your path

life's the adventure

come with me

i'll show you the gate

at the end of a darkness

life's the adventure

and i am the way

by val evans
copyright 2004

the crew of the bellafonte in the deep sub

the life aquatic sub in search of the jaguar shark 

the life aquatic

wes anderson's the life aquatic is the best movie that i have seen this year! i suppose that i love dry humor... and this film is full of it... and it contains one of the best set pieces ever produced in a movie... of the bellafonte, steve zissou's boat... and it has one of the best underwater sequences ever filmed, too... of the jaguar shark swimming luminescent in the darkness of an imaginary ocean depth...

a sad, touching and very funny movie...

not for kids, though, as there is full frontal nudity and some unpleasant language and shooting of guns and blowing up of dynamite...

see it...

frightened of santa claus

take a gander at these photographs of kids terrified of santa claus look-a-likes

tip of the hat to infinite monkeys

december 27th post on AIDS in cuba

tsunamis affect 6 countries!

unique means of linking to other blogs

a different take on twas the night before christmas...

tsunami in southeast asia

this morning in the aftermath of a 9.0 earthquake in the indian ocean, just as in the film, deep impact, water receded from beaches and shorelines and a huge wall of water hit a moment later so that more than 8,000 persons lost their lives and thousands more were left injured and or without homes...

world news international reported that people were brushing their teeth in second floor hotel rooms when water rushed in so that they had to swim to the ceilings searching for air pockets until they could escape...

pray for these people...
and, i am certain that ways to assist financially will be discussed across the blogosphere soon...

bob hope lives...

robin williams at a uso tour in iraq in early december, 2004... doing the bob hope thing...and isn't that julia roberts???  

mark alexander's "the true meaning of christmas"

read this extraordinary article on the attacks on christmas in the public square

help for the troops at christmas (or anytime)

send pre-paid long distance phone cards to:

Medical Family Assistance Center
Walter Reed Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20307-5001

tip of the hat to hugh hewitt

read "a marine's view" at the roof top

the 12 days of christmas as a catechism

Between the years 1558-1829, English Catholics were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Without regular mass, sacraments, or catechism lessons from the priest, there was little parents could do to help their children learn and remember all out their faith. This song was created to keep the Catholic faith in their lives, even though hidden for the time.

Instead of referring to an suitor, the "true love" mentioned in the song refers to God Himself. The "me" who receives the presents symbolises every baptized person.

'A partridge in a pear tree' is Jesus Christ. A mother partridge will feign injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings. The children hearing this song would know that, and would understand the parallel between the acts of a mother bird, and the sacrifice of Christ.

The other symbols continue the symbolism:
2 turtle doves----the Old and New Testaments;
3 French hens--Faith, Hope and Charity;
4 calling birds---the Four Gospels;
5 golden rings---the first five books of the Old Testament, which give the history of man's fall from grace;
6 geese a laying-the six days of creation;
7 swans a swimming-seven gifts of the Holy Spirit;
8 maids a milking-the eight Beatitudes;
9 ladies dancing--nine choirs of angels;
10 lords a leaping-the Ten Commandments;
11 pipers piping--the eleven faithful Apostles;
12 drummers drumming-the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

fun facts about christmas

i should have known that the "X" in christmas stands for "christ" in greek

take my mini-poll on "happy holidays" expression

how does it make you feel when colleagues, etc. say: "happy holidays?" vote now! take my mini-poll!

you got to scroll down and LOOK for it, however...

merry christmas, everyone!

ditto

rick brady of stones cry out says it best:

I blog because it is one of many means to pursue activism. I understand that Christ is in control, but he doesn't call me to be a lump on a log. I walk in the way that I pray is right and in conformance with His word and will. This means that by extension, at this point in time, I am also an activist for the Republican Party because I believe the values of the Party are closest to my family's values.

ignore global warming and "save the world"

i don't normally lift an entire article, but this one touched me... and reminded me of several previous posts in my archives on global warming and the kyoto accords...


'Ignore Global Warming,' Says Former Greenpeace Member
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
December 14, 2004

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNSNews.com) - A former member of Greenpeace who became disillusioned with what he saw as bad eco-science urged a United Nations climate change conference to "save the world" by ignoring global warming.

"Climate change is a huge thing, but there is very little that we can do about it," Bjorn Lomborg told CNSNews.com following a speech in Buenos Aires on Monday.

Lomborg, the author of the new book Global Crisis, Global Solutions, also wrote The Skeptical Environmentalist, a book devoted to debunking many of the alarmist claims of environmental groups. He is attending the U.N.'s Conference of Parties or COP-10 meeting on climate change here.

In an essay published Monday in the London Telegraph, Lomborg wrote that "global warming has become the obsession of our time" and "is the moral test of our age."

Lomborg believes that global warming is real and is caused by C02, but he adds that mankind can "do very little about the warming."

Lomborg, an associate professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, is in Buenos Aires trying to convince world governments to worry less about climate change and concentrate instead on what he considers solvable problems, such as AIDS, poverty and inadequate sanitation.

Lomborg organized the "Copenhagen Consensus," an international team of economists and others who conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the world's most pressing problems.

"So in a curious way, global warming really is the moral test of our time, but not in the way its proponents imagined. We need to stop our obsession with global warming and start dealing with the many more pressing issues in the world, where we can do [the] most good, first and quickest," Lomborg argued.

According to Lomborg, any effects that global warming may have on people 100 years from now will be muted because poor nations are projected to be much wealthier and thus better equipped to deal with any climate complications.

"The people who are going to be affected by it in 2100 are likely going to be much richer," Lomborg told an audience at the Universidad de Ciencias Monday night.

"By the U.N.'s own scenarios, everyone [in poor nations] will be at least as rich as we are today in the developed world in 2100; and much more likely, they will be 2 to 4 times more wealthy than the developed world is today. Of course, the developed world will be even much richer than that," Lomborg predicted.

"Imagine if you were a rich Chinese or a rich Rwandan or a rich Bolivian in 2100, looking back on 2004, saying how odd that the people of 2004 were so concerned about helping me a little bit through climate change and so relatively unconcerned about helping my grandfather and my great-grandfather who needed the help much, much more," he said.

"If we can't do everything, let's make sure that we actually do something that is going to help the world a lot rather than just a little," Lomborg said.

pandemic likely to be centered in asia

the world health organization expects a new strain of flu virus to spread out from asia...

The H5N1 bird-flu virus, which ravaged the region's poultry stocks, also spread to people, killing 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam. But there was no evidence that it had acquired the human-flu characteristics it would need to be passed easily between people.

Once that happens, the result would be a pandemic that could cause as many as seven million deaths, the WHO has warned.

The WHO has raised fears that bird flu could mix with a virus carried by pigs, which are genetically more similar to humans, giving rise to a mutated strain that would become transmissible among people.

blogosphere as filter

thanks to jon udell of infoworld who wrote on december 10th:

Just as telephones are meaningful only when connected to the telephone network, so blogs are meaningful only when connected to the blog network. Both are carriers of human communication, but where the telephone network is essentially fixed -- at least for now (...) -- the blog network is malleable and is shaped by our use of it. It’s more like a nervous system than a computer network, and for good reason.

The crush of information we process every day creates a terrible dilemma. On the one hand, we must conserve the scarce resource of attention. On the other hand, we need to become aware of everything that matters.

jon udell tells us what we know: that the blogosphere focuses our attention on the events and ideas that do matter...

two "newsmagazine" views of christ's birth

back to working my dream job

after a wonderful, relaxed week at home and on the road to pa. to see my better/other half i am back to work this morning... i never know what awaits after 9 days away... familiar and new patients, and always a change in the hospital... can you imagine, a major change appears to occur every time i am on vacation...

life waits for no man... person... woman, whatever!

i am looking forward to being back in my office... and back to my dream job!

freedom's price

"A video grab shows the scene of a suicide car bomb in Iraq Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf December 19, 2004, which killed 48 people and wounded at least 90, according to a hospital official"
 

a cultural absurdity

Mollie Ziegler is presently writing a book, tentatively titled Interfaith is No Faith: How Religious Relativism is Destroying the Church, that asks a simple but profound question: why is it that Americans are afraid to believe their own religions? Why is it that we are so intolerant of any belief system that doesn't agree with the culturally orthodox notion that it really doesn't matter what you believe?

True diversity is impossible in such a situation. So is true tolerance. One has to disagree with somebody in order to be tolerant of their beliefs, and disagreeing about anything that matters (or at least admitting that anything we disagree about possibly could matter) seems close to the essence of the American ethos.

Why should such a patently absurd notion be so precious to us?

How did we come to be so rigid in only permitting one set of convictions regarding ultimate questions in our culture- the one that says that it doesn't matter what answer you give? Why is it so difficult for Americans to grasp the simple proposition that to the extent that if all religions are correct, none of them are? Why are we afraid to grasp the challenge of seeking to be a truly diverse society, which acknowledges the legitimacy of actually disagreeing with one another on ultimate questions which everyone acknowledges ultimately matter?

Why do we, as a nation, fear to approach the radically exclusive religious beliefs to which we give lip service with a modicum of honesty and intellectual integrity, recognizing that in a truly tolerant society its members must hold mutually exclusive beliefs, if tolerance is even to be possible?

I can't wait to read it Molly's book. Our national horror of religious integrity is something striking enough, obvious enough in its dishonesty, and rips the substance from the convictions of each and every one of the religions Americans hold with such obvious and shameless violence that the inability of most Americans to see the problem seems incomprehensible. Maybe she can help the more thoughtful among us understand this cultural absurdity a little better.

tip of the hat to "bob" of watersblogged...

next time you are in the hospital

next time you visit your doctor's office or need to spend some time in a hospital be certain to check out your doctors and your nurses' hands... make sure they have short, clean fingernails... ask your doctor, especially, to wear gloves if he or she does not do so automatically...

Study Links Bacteria, Long Nails and Baby Deaths

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN (NYT) 516 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 16 , Column 1

ABSTRACT - Federal and Oklahoma health officials say that bacteria beneath long fingernails of nurses have been linked to deaths of babies in an intensive care unit in hospital in Oklahoma City; epidemiologists who investigate outbreak of bacterial infection at Children's Hospital find that about half of 16 deaths from Jan 1, 1997 to March 12, 1998, were apparently due to contamination from long fingernails; no deaths have been reported since hospital imposed measures like requiring that nurses in neonatal intensive care unit have short nails.

the hospital in which i work requires short fingernails; but, a patient is unlikely to see my fingernails because i should be wearing gloves whenever i am close enough to the patient for he or she to check out my hands...

big brother? sometimes we need a big brother

reading dead men's voices this morning, and pondering over mandated mental health screenings for children in public schools...

seeing both sides of this issue: frightening, yes, that parental consent is not necessary for these screenings... on the other hand, what of children whose parents are mentally ill themselves? mental health professionals are not always out to feed the hand of the pharmaceutical company; sometimes, they do identify and help young children whose parents are too close to the situation to see that help is needed...

sometimes, the mental health professional does offer a drug that gets a child through a terrible point in life...

i think we should be careful not to denigrate all mental health professionals as avaricious, government-owned evil "let's get johnny stoned" so we can teach him something persons...

samson's skull

at the carnegie museum of natural history in pittsburgh, pa yesterday, i missed seeing the actual skull of samson, the t-rex that belongs to this museum... instead, i got to peruse a long lists of posts with photographs of samson's skull being wrapped for shipment to be CT scanned i think in alabama... if i understand this, samson's skull is in need of reconstructing because our knowledge has changed so much that his skull must be deconstructed then reconstructed based on this new knowledge from more intact examples such as sue... see my previous post on "sue"...

day in washington dc

here i am in washington, dc having spent the day exploring the national museum of american history after a brief, albeit depressing stop at the national aquarium.

at the national museum of american history, i saw the star spangled banner under restoration, and actually cried... it was so moving... i saw a display dated 1954 in which two children have moved, and are standing in front of a green, wooden paneled station wagon with a small kidillac car on the lawn... and i laughed thinking back to my days in memphis, tennessee when i was six...

all and all, a wonderful, though very cold day walking around pennsylvania avenue and 14th and 15th streets. ate at two grand restaurants...

i ate breakfast at old ebbitts grill and a late lunch at les halles where i had tomato soup and a selection of french cheeses with bread and butter and a kir royal... yum...

later, i spent some time at grand station shopping for my daughter... and finally reached my destination of gettysburg with my other/better half...

read brent's post: "blue christmas"

free public access to the latest medical research

reading amanda schaffer's article open access this morning in slate in which she describes a recent push for free public access to the latest in scientific research...

turns out that most of the time we spend online searching, we are searching for medical information... and the NIH agrees that since public monies fund the research, the research should be available to the public and should be available for free...

for some links to free resources that are available now, check slate article out...

where the battle is really fought

today, matt powell writes with wisdom the following:

The church has frequently been persecuted in the past. We are being persecuted now. We are not being thrown in jail or tortured- not in this country, anyway- but there are sizable portions of this country who would silence us, suppress us, and even imprison us in order to remove all opposition to the dream of man. We should not be surprised. Jesus told us this would happen, as did Paul and Peter and James and John. We Christians need to start recognizing where the battle really is being fought. Jesus is being taken out of the public square because He was taken out of the hearts and minds of a great many of our countrymen, including many of those standing in pulpits and claiming to represent Him, a long time ago. Let’s make sure Jesus is enthroned in our own hearts, and in our families and churches, before we start worrying about some parade or some old stone monument.

ocean's 12

my son and i saw ocean's 12 last night at our local "dollar" theatre... that's right, it cost us 8 bucks for the two of us to see this first run movie...

an example of free enterprise... a 16 theatre complex opened in our town, and behold, our local movie house was, it appeared, doomed to oblivion... but, thank goodness, the owners decided to lower their prices...

and, as far as i can tell, this theatre will remain open... and i will continue to support it because i would really miss it if it disappeared... not that it has stadium seating or new cushy seats; but it is familiar and it is local!

as for the movie, ocean's 12 is much like ocean's 11... tedious at times, but worth it in the end... with even better character development than the first, although with a bit less fun...

intellectual bullying

alan aker today writes:

...you have to live in rural, red state America to experience intellectual diversity.

We hear both sides of the story. On abortion, the environment, gay marriage, war, and taxes, we hear the liberal side from the national media, and we hear both sides in the local media and radio. Sure, we hear the liberal side twice, but at least we hear the conservative side once...

(one reason that)liberals never hear the other side is that they're such bullies. Intellectual bullies, that is. I'm sure Manhattan has conservatives, but they live in such an intolerant environment, they probably keep quiet.

Things like this are hard to quantify, but you can detect it in how liberals argue their political positions. Consider hate crimes laws. They criminalize thought. We can all agree that things like assault, murder, and theft should be illegal, but only an intellectual bully is interested in whether you had the correct thoughts about those you were murdering or assaulting.

Or consider sex education. Liberals oppose laws requiring abstinence education. These laws don't forbid schools from continuing on with the traditional "we know you're going to have sex, so here's a condom" philosophy, they merely require that schools also inform kids of the benefits of abstinence. Only intellectual bullies would feel so threatened by the idea of students hearing both points of view.

Another trademark of intellectual bullies is that they can't resist calling people names. They honestly think their opponents are evil or stupid. We're homophobes. Patriarchs. Greedy. Fundamentalist. Bigots. Gun-toters. White trash. Bible-thumpers. It's hard to listen to new ideas with these thoughts in your head.

the above quote is thanks to 17 yr old american lady, who commented rather eloquently with her own personal take:

I have a lot of gay male friends, and while a lot of them accept my conservatism (they call me "The least likely Republican"), some of their friends don't take it very well. They say that because I support President Bush means that I want them to rot in hell because they're gay.


Uh...right. Exactly.


It was really hard for me to support them in the election. I told them that when the amendment went up to ban all gay marriage, I told them that I would be on their side. I don't want them to legally get married, but a ban seems too permenant. If some crazie wants to start a religion and have them marry gays, okay, let it be legal for that religion (that's how I feel personally).


But some of them just couldn't see past what I believed. The men that I am closest to are the ones who were able to understand me and were open minded.


A few of my gay friends also don't support gay marriage themselves. They have to suffer the burden of being called a "self-loathing homosexual" just because they believe that the religious tradition of marriage is between a man and a woman.


I discuss homosexuals because they make up a large part of the population in these cities. Many of them think like crazy left wing liberals. Everyone who doesn't agree with gay marriage, they believe, is some incredible bigot that wouldn't know their left foot from their right foot.


If you don't agree with these liberals, you're automatically stupid. You have no idea what you're talking about. It's a wonder that you can get up in the morning.


And you look at liberals when they say that, and you just LAUGH. Funny, isn't it? Really ironic.


Anyway, the article is great, please read it.

photographs and stories of wounded soldiers of the iraqi war

geminid meteor shower peaks tonight!

get out of the city, bundle up, grab your hot coccoa and head out into the country to get the best view of the geminid meteor shower...

The Geminids begin to appear noticeably more numerous in the hours after 10 p.m. local time Monday, because the shower’s radiant is already fairly high in the eastern sky by then. The best views, however, come around 2 a.m. Tuesday, when their radiant point will be passing very nearly overhead. The higher a shower’s radiant, the more meteors it produces all over the sky.

the drawer boy - december 1st-19th

chip egan, nick newell, and jim stark in production of the drawer boy at the so. carolina repertory theatre in hilton head, so. carolina...directed by tom evans; assistant director, diane egan; theatre company founders: hank and pat haskell... 

enormous, awesome "sue" t-rex

"sue" at 90 ft. displayed several years ago at the columbus, oh museum of science and industry... "sue" was on display at discovery place in charlotte, no. carolina last year...  

humanist "how to" on raising spiritual kids

yep, it's true... (please note, emphasis in the following quote is mine, and i take full responsibility for it...)

"Kids are going to hear about God all over," says Neifert (a pediatrician) "If you don't put your own spin on it, with your own values, they'll absorb someone else's."

Don't pretend to have all the answers. When your child asks where people go when they die, answer honestly: "Nobody knows for sure, but some people think they go to heaven to be close to God. Other people think they're born again in a new body." Inevitably, your child will ask what you think. If you have a strong belief, share it. If not, it's okay to admit that there are some questions people spend their whole lives trying to figure out -- and this is one of them.

Use daily events to teach spirituality. Big ideas don't always require big actions. You can demonstrate that spirituality is a part of everyday life by incorporating it into ordinary actions and words. When you open the curtains in the morning, you can say, "Look at this glorious day Mother Nature made." At bedtime, you can sign off with, "God bless you, sweetie pie."

yep, it's true... didn't you realize that mother nature creates the day while God just closes it off at the end!

musings on the left

heaven vs. immortality

wesley snipes as "blade" in the trinity of vampire killers...surprisingly funny, touching in places... when the original vampire "he" offers a captured-hostage child immortality...the little girl, "zoey" counters the offer with: "i will go to heaven" and "my friends are going to kill you"...

i was struck by the mere mention of "heaven" in a film such as this...

flutist in ice

"tip of the hat" to brandy, who posted this photograph on wisdom of the ages... 

taking quiet time to connect

from msn.com home page...

...if each partner is willing to give a bit, and agree that you need to have some quiet time with each other each day, you've got a good start. The important thing is making sure you have some relaxed time to connect. "You want to make sure you have that time where you're sitting around with a cup of coffee, remembering why you love each other"...

about one-half inch but sure does jump out at you!

here is a nice close-up scan of that same little barnacle on the clam inside the shell of the beastie... found in cross creek quarry outside eutawville, so. carolina and recently displayed at the no. carolina fossil fair in whiteville, no. carolina... 

a barnacle where a barnacle should not be?

yes, that is a barnacle on this clam; and yes, it would have attached inside the shell... 

true blue

i wanted to point out that the slight blue-steel color that you see on these scans is "true" coloring; not a result of my scanner or my imaging software... now, i am far far far from an expert... anyone out there know within which layer these fossils "died" and were buried...? ...look at previous post "old and damaged" for the labial side of the same tooth...to see even more blue... 

looking inside

a scan of the hollow portion of that whale tooth... 

in living color

that whale tooth scanned in "living" color... the earlier scan, i tried b&w... 

walking around mud

the first fossil i spotted today while walking around mud and ruts with my white bichon, hanna in tow... needless to say, i got very excited... 

damaged and old

damaged and very old shark teeth... 

fossil teeth

more shark teeth found at palmetto sand... 

so much fun

a closer view of the turtle shell found today at palmetto sand... 

nehemiah made sorry

you were made sorry... but... your sorrow led you to repentance. for you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way... Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done...

paul wrote this to the corinthians, but it seems to me that it applies to nehemiah as well... he must have experienced this godly sorrow that did lead to repentance even though we are not told that nehemiah had committed any particular sin...after all, we all sin daily...nehemiah's godly sorrow resulted in each of the fruits which paul delineated many years later...

fossils scattered just about everywhere

these three shark teeth were found today... as was the turtle shell... 

annual shopping trip led to fossil finds

this is the other side of that unknown fossil that i found today on a fluke... i was driving back from an annual shopping trip in walterboro, saw the quarry, and pulled in just in time... 

a world for barnacles

a closer look at those "growths" on the shark tooth...

more wonderful fossils from palmetto sand

found at palmetto sand, but i have no idea what the top fossil find is; do you? the one below of course is a shark tooth; however, what is interesting is the "growth" on the tooth....

lack of "no tresspassing" sign made me hunt at palmetto sand

found today at palmetto sand, a quarry off hwy 17 on the way to walterboro, so. carolina... i am almost certain this a whale tooth...

miserly scrooge gets praise for savings account

quirky slate article encourages tax reform...

heifer international

support the work of heifer international this christmas season
"With assistance from Heifer International, families in the Ahtahkakoop Band in Saskatchewan, Canada, will participate in cattle projects to ...improve their livelihoods and break the cycle of welfare dependence."

survey says, yes we believe in the virgin birth of jesus, the christ

the majority of respondents to an MSNBC poll said that yes, mary was a virgin when jesus was conceived...

call for missionary work

those who know me, toothdigger, even slightly... know how odd it is that the Lord called me to the overseas mission field in 1979...to translate the Word into a native tongue without a written alphabet, if you can even imagine.

with such a grand calling, i left my job... (no sacrifice there)... and my home (even less of a sacrifice) in so. indiana, drove 18 hrs to norman, oklahoma to study with kenneth pike at the summer institute of linguistics...

(aside: at the summer institute of linguistics, i got my first meal of linguistics with coursework in international phonetics, phonology, and ever so difficult grammatical analysis with pike himself; my first taste of linguistics came at denison university where i took a year-long class as a substitute for the foreign language requirement...just fyi: i am a speech language pathologist and poet

at the end of three months, the wise men and women of wycliffe recognized my spiritual babyhood; and sent me off to moody bible in wonderful, windy chicago (one of my all time favorite cities!)...to get a better, firmer grounding in the Word!

at moody, while in the midst of studying God's awesome Word, i fell into SIN (yes, capital letter SIN!)... of course...

and, i wandered off from my calling... what is that? the first and best destiny? thrown to pigs...trampled upon...

i actually have no earthly idea; i only know i am here now...

the blogosphere may not be a traditional overseas missionary field and blogging may not be traditional mission field work, but i think deborah would have found it to be a pretty effective method of getting her message across to the israelites back in the o.t. times...

so, here i am, blogging for jesus, so to speak...
oh, the whole point of this post: I CAN'T BE A MISSIONARY without TRAFFIC!

T.U.L.I.P. revisited

the way of our salvation...

not so plain vernacular

more fascinating musings from a linguist on plain english; this go round this professor examines "dude"; its meanings both connotative and denotative...

plain english

in alan alda's film the four seasons a group of close friends from ny city take their year-end vacation skiing somewhere in the no.e. u.s.a.

they are in a bar with a horrible local band playing in the background...

at the head of the table for all to see.... danny, the dentist confesses to his friends that he is afraid of his underwear, that it will somehow consume him; he uses flowery words to describe this overwhelming phobia...

alan alda's character, jack remarks:

"why can't you just use plain english. you talk like a bad textbook!"

danny (the dentist) responds:

"now i just told you my deepest fears; why can't you listen to what i am saying not how i am saying it!"

meanwhile, jack's wife, played by carol burnett says in a motherease tone of voice:

"oh danny, we're sorry" and in the very next moment, adds: "tell me seriously, are really afraid of your underwear!?"

needless to say, danny turns gloomy, saying, "you think i hurt because i am quirky; but you've got it wrong; i'm quirky because i hurt."

___________________________________________________________________
if the "song" expresses my deep soul, then listen to what it is saying and try to ignore how poorly it is recorded

excellence vs. mediocrity - the incredibles again

reading soxblog this evening, musing over his post regarding excellence vs. mediocrity after seeing the incredibles... as did i after seeing the same film twice now...

soxblog's posting is a stab at "political correctness" - seems the school where he taught a gifted and talented class insisted upon changing the name of the class to... now, what did the post say? well, the point is that the name of this class for exceptionally talented students was so silly and so innocuous that it was indeed meaningless...

God in His great wisdom has called us to excellence...
He does not want nor does He cherish mediocrity...

my daughter, who is a freshman at a quaker school in indiana known as earlham college is just now completing a seminar called "who am i? what do i want to do?" in which she has written a wonderful essay summing up how she has changed this first semester...

in this essay, however, she questions whether studying as hard as she is able is worth the time and effort... she writes:

I think that I want to become more studious while I’m here. There are times when I feel that if I’d just put in a few more hours of studying a few days before, say, a test, then my grades would greatly increase. However, those thoughts are always canceled out when I realize that my grades are good as they are and there’s no point in pushing myself harder. Maybe there’s not, but then again, maybe there’s something I’ll be missing by not studying my hardest.

now, some of this saddens me of course as her mother and mentor and friend, but her question at the end is heartening... she will discover that this final question to herself is the key...

to excellence, and not mediocrity...

a reversal of fortune for salvation army

mervyns, a national chain, has reversed its decision of last month; now allowing salvation army bell ringers to solicit charitable contributions in front of its stores...

a christmas message to maureen dowd

mini-study of nehemiah as parable

jerusalem was re-built, but the walls were "broken down" and the "gates were burned"... sometimes, a marriage is saved, but the relationship is broken down, in ruins, and burnt...

i see the first six chapters of nehemiah (a book supposedly too dull to read) as a parable of a modern marriage on the rocks...

nehemiah was not a prophet; he did not hear God's voice directly, but "heard" God through His Word (as we do today)...nehemiah was emotionally crushed when he learned that jerusalem's walls and gates remained unrepaired even after the temple had been rebuilt by zerubbabel as reported by ezra...

so the temple or the marriage may be rebuilt or saved, but its "walls" and "gates" may remain in disarray and in a state of destruction...

nehemiah wept, fasted, prayed... asking God to open His ears and open His eyes to hear; he confessed his sins and the sins of the people, and reminded God to keep His covenant with those who love and obey Him...

just as nehemiah did, i believe persons today in the midst of marital turmoil must weep, fast, pray, confess sins, remind God of His covenant; then plan and work... within the gathering of christians called the Church...

nehemiah, once he received permission from his boss; he was the king's chief aide or cupbearer, went to jerusalem and walked around within it, inspecting it in the dark for three days...

in this parable, perhaps the three days of dark inspection are those days that the husband and wife inspect the damage, assess the situation... keep the rubble around the marriage quietly in their hearts...

afterwards, however, with a clear plan nehemiah openly tells the people that he intends to re-build the walls and gates. for nehemiah, it is not enough to have the temple back up; he wants the whole; he wants the walls and gates restored...

he tells the people; and they rally to him, each person building his part of the city wall...

a marriage is two people joined together by God, but they are also a couple among couples within the gathering of people who follow the Lord...

today, a marriage that has had its "temple" destroyed is not usually re-built at all; and when it is, it is most certainly the work of the Holy Spirit... but, the individuals within that re-built marriage may still find that its "walls" and "gates" are broken down and burnt in a manner so complete that it appears impossible to repair...

nehemiah faced extraordinary and constant opposition to his efforts to rebuild the walls of the city! he even armed the people, asking them to carry a spear or staff in one hand while building with the other!

a marriage with a recently re-built "temple" that is in the long process of having its "walls" and "gates" restored will be under attack; and the individual husband and wife must bind themselves to a body of christians who will weep, pray, fast, confess, and remind God of His covenant...

n.i.d.

ny times this morning reports that:

In his radio address, Mr. Bush said that Congress was being given the opportunity to pass "a strong new law" that "would make America more secure" by coordinating the work of the nation's intelligence agencies, and specifically by creating the job of national intelligence director.

The Sept. 11 commission had urged that the job be created in an effort to force rival intelligence and counterterrorism agencies, notably the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to put aside generations-old turf battles and cooperate against terrorist threats.

In its final report last July, the commission cataloged a series of instances in which spy agencies refused or otherwise failed to share intelligence before Sept. 11 that might have led to disruption of the terrorist plot...

what the ny times' article does not report is the rationale behind the g.o.p. objections to this bill, which the ny times also indicates is occurring in congress right now...

argument is for a christmas tradition

a lively debate re: salvation army bell ringers vs. target legalism...

humanist, jeremy rifkin vs. christian, wiliam j. bennett

i got up in the middle of the night to "blog" on an odd and slightly disturbing excerpt from a book entitled THE EUROPEAN DREAM by jeremy rifkin...

in the excerpt, published in utne, sept-oct 2004 issue, rifkin writes that "it saddens (him) to say that america is no longer a great country." (p 75)

he bases this observation on his view that the european union (e.u.) has usurped the american dream and substituted a better dream...

it seems that americans are too naive and optimistic, with "unbounded hope" while europeans are cynical with a "deep pessimistic edge ingrained" in them...

while americans are seen as "living to work," europeans supposedly work to "deep play"... getting an average of 6 weeks vacation annually, for example, to our "2 weeks"... they also have less prisoners, better math literacy, and a lower infant mortality rate than the u.s.a.

they are also more "embedded" with one another and fond of "belonging, not belongings" (p 77)

rifkin writes:

today, two-thirds of the people living across the european union say they feel "european."... (and) say they "now regard themselves more as europeans than as nationals of their home country." although it is difficult to fathom, this extraordinary change in how europe's people perceive themselves has occurred in less than 50 years.

he also indicates that in the proposed e.u. constitution, "there is not a single reference to God" and that "many europeans no longer believe in God."

the language throughout the draft constitution speaks of universalism, making it clear that its focus is not on a people, or a territory, or a nation, but rather the human race and the planet we inhabit.

rifkin points out that the american dream is "inseparable from the country's religious heritage and deep spiritual faith" and that "the european dream is secular to the core"...

and rifkin says that we are not a great country...because we have income inequality, increasing violence, and long commutes to work...

yet, he also writes that while europe went the way of democratic socialism, america did not,

making us the most devoutly prostestant people on earth and most committed to scientific pursuits, private property, capitalism, and the nation-state.

on the other hand, william j. bennett in his book, THE BROKEN HEARTH writes that our founding fathers

got things about right. Capitalism, they saw, was a crucial component in sustaining a liberal, democratic society...

the founding fathers also knew that certain human traits towards violence, avarice, excessive individualism would need curbing, and this is where the strong family

serves as something of a counterbalance

nevertheless, bennett writes that:

capitalism has created a degree of opportunity unimaginable only a few generations ago. while lifting an unprecidented number of people out of poverty, moreover, the free market and private property have helped to further political freedom and to secure basic human rights. the market economy rewards human initiative, creativity, and excellence. it is...the most efficient and humane economic system the world has ever known

(p 35-36)

my response to target guest relations

Dear Ms Janson,

I appreciate your response; however, I remain convinced that the Salvation Army should continue to be allowed to solicit in front of Target stores across the U.S. in that this is an American Christmas tradition.

In the early 1960s, I remember living in Memphis, Tennessee (when I was between four and six years old), with bell ringers on just about every corner, usually dressed in Santa Claus suits. Already we, as a nation, are a long way from that picturesque time; but we may at least provide an American institution, that is only charitable in nature and cause, a few places to continue that tradition.

Customers need only walk by. And, very few individuals are offended by bells ringing.

As for other solicitors, what difference does it make that they stand in front of Target? Again, all a customer need do is smile politely, say "no" firmly, and walk into your store.

As it stands at present, I am not able to enter your store. I miss Target.

Sincerely yours,
Val

target guest relations respond to my boycott

Subject: The Salvation Army

Dear Target Guest,

Like many nationwide retailers, Target Corporation has a long-standing "no
solicitation" policy that it consistently applies to all organizations
across all of its stores.

We receive an increasing number of solicitation inquiries from non-profit
organizations and other groups each year and determined that if we continue
to allow the Salvation Army to solicit then it opens the door to any other
groups that wish to solicit our guests. While some of our guests may welcome
the opportunity to support their favorite charity or cause, allowing these
organizations to solicit means that Target would also have to permit
solicitation by organizations whose cause or behavior may be unacceptable
to our guests.

We notified the Salvation Army of our decision in January 2004, well in
advance of the holiday season, so the organization would have time to find
alternative fundraising sources. Target also asked the Salvation Army to
look at other ways that we could support their organization under our
corporate giving guidelines. To this date they have not provided a proposal
that fits those guidelines.

Local Salvation Army chapters can apply for grants through their local
Target stores. For decades, many non-profit organizations across the
country have successfully worked with Target in this manner. We are asking
the Salvation Army to work with us in the same exact manner as the other
groups and organizations who ask to solicit our guests.

This decision in no way diminishes Target Corporation's commitment to its
communities. Target has one of the largest corporate philanthropy programs
in America, donating more than $2 million per week and hundreds of
thousands of volunteer hours each year to the communities in which it does
business.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Hanson
Target Executive Offices

holly burkhalter writes of engaged conservative christian activists in war on AIDS

holly burkhalter's article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS jan/feb 2004 issue "the politics of aids: engaging conservative activists" presents a more positive take on the involvement of evangelical individuals in the war against the spread of AIDS, including:

thanks to recent activism by conservative political and religious groups, AIDS has finally started to gain foreign policy attention... prodded by its conservative evangelical base, the bush administration has pushed AIDS to the forefront of its international agenda, backing record increases in US assistance for AIDS treatment abroad and beginning to address such issues as sex trafficking and the dangers of HIV transmission from unsafe injections and blood transfusions.

turns out, according to burkhalter, that the world health org. (WHO) has recognized that both prevention and treatment measures are necessary to reduce the spread of AIDS; neither alone works as well as when combined.
additionally, burkhalter writes that:

the real turning point in american AIDS policy came when conservative christians made the cause their own

frank graham, in feb 2002, convened the first international christian conference on HIV/AIDS in washington, d.c. "prescription for hope" and called for

treatment of the sick and the dying

during this conference, senator jesse helms confessed his lack of effort in helping victims of AIDS in africa and subsequently penned an op-ed in the washington post pledging to

secure $500 million to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the disease

also, according to burkhalter, a conservative republican senator, jeff sessions of alabama in 2003 built bipartisan support for a safe health care initiative that reversed decades of neglect of the poorest countries in africa.
further, another conservative republican representative, chris smith of n.j:

offered a provision to the AIDS bill that prohibited funding to any organization that did not oppose trafficking and prostitution more generally

...in an effort to reduce such horrors as india's 2.3 million women and girls who are forced into its sex industry generating millions of orphans and/or street children...
nevertheless, william bennett of empower america writes that condom use promotion with distribution alone does not work to reduce HIV prevalence...

african nations that promoted condom use alone...suffer the highest HIV prevalence rates

here in the u.s., the government at the beginning of 2004 was providing $100 million in abstinence education and the family research council suggests that we should extend this policy to africa...

on the grounds that "responsible moral behavior is the first and best line of defense against AIDS, and is the only message we should send young people worldwide"

fears that spread death

in the november 27th to december 3rd, 2004 edition of the economist, an article entitled, "the fear that spreads death" proclaims that aids/hiv is rampant in jamaica because of fear of prejudice rather than fear of the disease itself:

and fear there is aplenty. powerful evangelical churches spread an unforgiving gospel; and while they promise sinners suffering in the afterlife, others are more than ready to offer it in the hear and now...(p 42)

in this article, this is the only time that evangelical churches are mentioned. not one church is identified, and not one example is provided of the church's offering of suffering in the here and now... instead the article delineates police examples, healthcare examples, reggae dance hall examples and even labor party examples of hatred, violence, and prejudicial behaviors against those with aids, whether homosexual or heterosexual victims...

once again, a reporter has failed to be objective about christians...

pruning

pruned my blogroll this morning not because i did not care for a particular blog, but because i found myself returning to the same blogs repeatedly...additionally, i discovered many blogs on my rolling list were not being updated regularly...

therefore, i have started a "favorites" list... remember, also, pruning spurs growth...

check these out; each one is unique, has a special voice as well as ideas, views, opinions, information to communicate...

personal savings accounts vs. traditional social security

intriguing information from freedom works debunking myths associated with personal savings accounts that are designed to "save social security"...

(a tip of the hat to sean duffy's THE RIGHT WORD)

praise, confess, remind, ask; then work with all your heart

nehemiah was not ashamed to show on his face his "sadness of heart" even before someone in authority over him... he was the king's cupbearer...

nehemiah was in pain that the walls of jerusalem were destroyed by fire; therefore he "mourned", he "fasted", and he "prayed"...

in his prayer, he praises God, he confesses his and the people's sins, he reminds God of His covenant-promise, and he asks for success...

then God works through the king to send nehemiah to jerusalem where he waits three days... during those days, nehemiah tells no one that God has told him to rebuild the wall... he examines very thoroughly the damages... only then does he tell the jews...

the people respond, "Let us start rebuilding."

nehemiah says, "The God of heaven will give us success."

turns out that "the people worked with all their heart."

"Don't be afraid...Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."

brad bird's THE INCREDIBLES

brad bird writes with the conviction of the right in his latest screenplay THE INCREDIBLES...

this delightful, animated pixar flick explores roles within the family vs. within society, unashamedly revealing that mrs. incredible does not mind vacuuming the floors while mr. incredible looks for thrills of the past while "missing" the best parts of his family life... turns out mrs. incredible is the more talented of the two...

the screenwriter also pinpoints the frivolous, destructive lawsuits rampant in our society, the role of the government in protecting individuals often at great cost, the avarice of insurance agencies who look for profits at the expense of their clients and of weapons' developers who grow rich but "keep the best ones" for themselves, and finally the strong tendency toward mediocrity in our schools and jobs based on the false belief that everyone is ultimately the same... so that "everyone will become super so that no one will be" as the villain, SYNDROME states as a threat to the audience...

in the end, however, THE INCREDIBLES show that as a family, they are unique... and valuable to each other as well as to society at large...

jefferson's letter re: separation of church and state

an article worth a close read about the question of the separation of church and state...

in brief, the author discusses letters exchanged between the baptist association of danbury, Connecticut and the newly elected president thomas jefferson... the first, dated 10/07/1801, was a letter from the baptists congratulating jefferson with concerns that their religious privileges, under the constitution, were "favors granted, and not...inalienable rights". jefferson's response showed that he objected to a federally established denomination; and in his letter, he reiterated that religious privileges are "natural" or God-given rights...

definitely worth your time...

"mystery is gone"

ny times reports finds of 60 + bodies of murdered iraqis in old mosul this past week, but also reports, toward the end of the article, the following about capt. bill jacobsen:

"But to everyone's surprise, not a shot was fired, save for a few standard warning shots...

For soldiers like Captain Jacobsen, the fight here has become a painstaking labor to shake bits of information out of residents...

A 31-year-old devout Mormon who enjoys an easy rapport with his troops, Captain Jacobsen tries to put Iraqis at ease - a difficult task for a 6-foot-5 soldier outfitted with a helmet, ear protectors, body armor, a pistol and an M-4 assault carbine.

"I'm this thing walking into their house," he says. "When I go in, I want to sprinkle some reality in there, like, 'Hey, I've got kids, like you.' "

Although the afternoon raid did not produce any contact with the enemy, it served a purpose, Captain Jacobsen said, by establishing a presence in Old Mosul and planting in the minds of his troops the belief that the area can be tamed.

"The myth was that this was an impregnable fortress of insurgent activity. But the mystery is gone," he said. 'We can operate there.'"

captain jacobsen says it all, i think. what is true of old mosul is true of the whole of iraq... the mystery is gone; we can and must operate there. we must believe that the insurgent activity is not impregnable nor a fortress... support our troops; have faith...

one for the security exchange commission

the original letter from corning was dated 10/29/04... the letter from our broker, harris direct was dated 11/01/04... the envelope bore no cancellation date from the us post office... the expiration date for the offer to participate in what seems to be a commission free opportunity to buy or sell shares, was 11/23/04 according to harris and 11/29/04 according to corning... and the letter arrived in our mailbox on 11/24/04...

now, is this not suspicious?

the 4 of us for thanks giving

here we are in our s.c. living room... one of us studying cannibalism in crustaceans, another reading usa today and drinking a petite syrah bottled by bogle, another watching the world is not enough on satelite tv while ham bakes, sweet potatoes bake, roasted potatoes roast, broccoli steams, and pumpkin pie awaits...

meanwhile, i think i have an influenza bug attacking... or, i am allergic to chai tea... the only new food item added to my pantry...

happy thanksgiving... yes, we are celebrating a day late... because my other/better half worked the holiday...

lucky man, he was priviledged to drive into pittsburgh through a blizzard without any traffic to dodge or any other traveller at the security gate... even one of the vendors at the airport gave him a free pizza...

happy day after thanksgiving... and God bless us everyone!

more persecution in our schools

maryland public schools are not allowing teachers to teach the truth of historical events in which whole communities existed primarily to worship and serve god!

"Teaching about a secular Thanksgiving counters the holiday's original premise as stated by George Washington in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation: "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor."

Such omissions also deny the Pilgrims' religious fervor in the celebration of Thanksgiving, as related by Harry Hornblower, an archaeologist who spent years researching the history of the holiday.

According to the Web site Plimoth.org, dedicated to Mr. Hornblower's research, the Pilgrims, "fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean."Thanksgiving, the site said, derived from their belief that "a series of misfortunes meant that God was displeased, and the people should both search for the cause and humble themselves before him. Good fortune, on the other hand, was a sign of God's mercy and compassion, and therefore he should be thanked and praised.""

amen! and thanks to grumpy old man!

urban tactical planner vs. fat crayons

the nytimes reports today that u.s. soldiers now have a new weapon at their disposal in iraq...the urban tactical planner provided a:

three-dimensional virtual tour of a mazelike section of Mosul before the
first troops from the First Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, and the Iraqi
National Guard began capturing insurgents last month.

Not
only did the commanders simulate flying overhead to practice
air or ground
approach routes, but by zooming down they also saw buildings and streets and
spots where soldiers could assemble with some protection from sniper fire.

The images are not clear enough to make out people. But schools, mosques
and other important buildings were highlighted. Even ditches or other barriers
that might slow down an approach were marked.

The Urban
Tactical Planner is just one of a number of military and
intelligence tools
that use high-resolution commercial imagery. From relief efforts in Sudan, to
mission planning for Air Force flights and Navy ship movements across the world,
space-based imagery by private companies is now playing an essential role.

"It is the encyclopedia for minutia of Mosul," Mr. Feser
said in
a telephone interview from Iraq, after he used the imaging system to help his
brigade prepare for its mission in Mosul. "Before what we had was a map with
markers and acetate. It was like being a kindergartner with fat crayons."

well, the nytimes quote has formatted as a poem, and perhaps it is...

just meanderings

"lathered-up left"

per the right word, a well-written post on prejudice against the evangelical christian...

tell target to allow bell ringing

most oddly, target has decided to ban the salvation army bellringers from its storefronts...you may want to read, sign, and distribute the petition...and/or refrain from shopping at target this holiday season...

sadam hussein defended

see some of the french in action...

In a newsletter (dated simply 2003) lacking the State of Iraq's Cote of Arms (state symbol), which appears on subsequent releases, the authors declared in an exhortative language:

"We are numerous everywhere in the world, and particularly in the French-speaking space, to wish not only the end of the Yankee's occupation in Iraq, but more the victory of the Ba'thist resistance, which claims itself of Saddam Hussein and which is organized in the Movement Resistance and Liberation [poor translation from the original in French, meaning the Resistance and Liberation Movement] of Iraq."

humanitas publishes my story

i am happy to report... that my short short story, RETRIEVAL, is published in MUSC's literary magazine, HUMANITAS... look for it on campus in downtown Charleston...

off to class

my son off to class at college...

a narrow way through pa.

a narrow road in upstate pennsylvania, taken by my better/other half...