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"