Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Grrr. Here I am on the first day of "vacation," at my kitchen table fixin' to start about a half-day of work. Work-work. Simply could not get it done, even after working 12:30 to 5 p.m. yesterday.

Well, at least I have two barely domesticated domestic shorthairs, Ice-T and Eames, over on the Route 66-themed futon, boxin' each other's ears and carryin' on.

And Dr. ER is still snoozing; poor sweetiepie; she's still trying to get caught up on sleep after about a year's worth of insane travel; one spate had her away from Boulder, and the Hole (what she calls her studio apartment) for four solid weeks.

Still not sure what up with the demise of her gig -- but the boss man turned out to be unreasonable at best, a passive-aggressive tyrant at worst.

Work beckons.

Oh, on a lighter note: Viva Watermelon! (This might explain my summertime obsession with the sweet, pink, succulent fruitmeat ... excuse me mm-hmm wow gotta go.) ;-)

--ER

P.S. The picture on the link cracks me UP.

First, Dr. ER and I went to a few junque shops yesterday afternoon recommended by DrLobojo. Once again, when we got home, I was as pleased with what I did not buy as what I did buy!

A great wide photo of the Agnew and Exchange area, near the Oklahoma City Stockyards, circa 1954, almost prised $65 out of my hands -- but I realized I know where I can probably buy a similar photo for a lot less.

A fascinating but ICKY-YUCK-POO-GAH make-it-go-away framed dead body of a complete bat specimen, priced at $69, did not come close to prising money out of my billfold. But it made me think of DrLobojo, who might -- shudder -- actually enjoy owning such.

What I *did* make it home with:

1. Highball glass embossed with "The Black Angus Room ... T. Pittari's ... Since 1895 ... New Orleans, La." Danged if I haven't accidentally started collecting these things. That makes three I have now. The others from Stillwater, Okla., andBossier City, La.

2. A classic: "The Cattlemen: From the Rio Grande Across the Far Marias," by Mari Sandoz. I previously have read her "Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas" and other of her writings.

3. A keen little young people's book called "And Then Mom Joined the Army," a Vietnam-era piece by Jeannie Hagy that I simply had to buy.

What Dr. ER brought home: A genuine Boston baked bean bean pot.

So much for the junque.


Now, for the junque that God don't make none of: That's people. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. ...

Prayer of Confession today at church:

Lord of Life, we spend so much time and energy searching for meaning in our lives, and trying to please others. Instead of striving, we should try accepting the extravagant welcome that we have been shown in Jesus, and extend that same extravagant welcome to others. To "welcome" sounds easy, but it requires an open heart and soft, wide eyes. When we meet the stranger, please help us to keep our defenses down. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, our Teacher and Lord, we pray, Amen.

We Christians are quite literally called to be xenophiles -- not xenophobes! Whether cultural, national, whateveral!

Here, some examples of how not to:

The Bible says it the way I say it says it, therefore God says it the way I say God says it, because the Bible IS *THE* Word of God, as I understand it, and if you don't like it you can go straight to hell.

Lamenting the beachhead of "the enemy"!

Here's a line: do not cross it!

Yes, I've been in mor than one kind the junque shop the past couple of days.

--ER

Longtime good friend K.Kat (pictured, in the early stages of a night-time mountain beer-drinkin'), whose conservatism makes McCain out to be a flaming lefty, and who wears his Southernness on his sleeve, was in town, from our stompin' grounds in rural eastern Oklahoma, for bidness the other night, and over supper we got to talkin' about Yankee brusqueness.

It always comes across as rudeness.

K.Kat was saying how one of his employees, who works from a smallish town in Texas, always gets his dander up when a supervisor in Chicago gets on the phone and starts telling him where to head in at. You *will* do this, and you *will* do that today, and so on.

The Texan told K.Kat that he appreciates it when K.Kat calls and says something like, Could you take care of this today? Or, Don't you think you should do that today? See, the Texan knows that even though K.Kat is asking him, he's tellin' him.

That Yankee just rubs the Texan, and K.Kat, the wrong way. Same thing happens to me a lot when I'm on the phone with a Yank -- until I disarm him or her with my country charm or a redneck one-liner or something.

K.Kat reminded me of one reason Southerners are so polite to one another: Back in the day, you never knew who was carryin' heat. Even nowadays, you never know who's just on the verge of kicking somebody ass's already, so it pays to be nice.

Yesterday morning, I was thinking of this as I entered and exited a kindness chain at a convenience store. The store was packed with only one person behind the counter. We all waited quietly, at the morning rush hour.

Then, as I was leaving the store, at the door I stood and waited as another man at the door held the door open for someone else; then it was my turn, so I held the door for someone else, then exited; then that someone else held the door for someone else; and then, I swear, that someone else held the door for someone else.

And we all every one of us were excuse-me'ing, why-thank-you'ing and you're-welcoming to beat the band. The Mexicans even. All with everybody in a rush to get to work.

Another friend of mine who grew up in Oklahoma has now lived in New York City about as long as he lived here. After a few years up there, he wrote and told me that he never realized how inefficient such "faux" kindnesses and niceties made life. Said he could get in and out of his neighborhood deli in 2 minutes flat just because nobody ever had a thing to say to one another. At all. Ever.

Gah. He can keep it. Life is too short to save time by not being kind.

--ER

Now, I know full that many, if not most, of my bloggy buddies and ER regulars disagree, but I can't say how relieved and happy I am with the SCOTUS decision on gun rights.

Awaiting the lovely bride!

Smooching the lovely bride!







Presenting the lovely bride!




Congratulations to my friends, Paul and Jennifer, who got hitched at the Oklahoma State Capitol rotunda last Saturday night!!

--ER

How small.

The good doctor attacks Barack Obama -- an actual broadside (def. 3) -- and then when people come to Obama's defense, he calls their Web site an "attack."

It's 1984 all over again. War is peace! Truth is fiction! Up is down!

James Dobson is a liar who employs liars. [EDIT: This is not directed at anyone not quoted in the crapterial Focus on Eveything But the Family is spewing this week.]

Let's review somethin', 'k?

THIS is an "attack." (Click to enlarge)


--ER

Roswell UFO Festival.

Dr. ER and I were in attendance 11 years ago for the 50th anniversary of the "incident."

A highlight of the trip was when I hit a cow driving at night on the open range of New Mexico. (I just nicked her! Really.) Seconds later, she was beamed up. (Not really.)

Hmmm. Dr. ER is here. I'm off work next week and weekend. She needs something completely different. Help me talk her into a road trip!

She doesn't hang out here regularly, but I'll ask her to give a looksee later -- if y'all have any encouraging words. 'Specially 'bout critters from out-yonder space! :-)

--ER

James Dobson Doesn't Speak for Me.

Thanks to mi amiga, (H)apa.

--ER

James Dobson sics himself on Obama. In "Christian love," of course.

Spin is sin, Dr. Dobson.

Fruitcake capital of the Western world: Colorado Springs, Colo.

--ER

LOL! I volunteered to help with Vacation Bible School later this month at church! I must be mad! Uno, it's rugrats mostly. Two-o, it's been something like 30 years since this church has had a VBS! Hey, it'll be fun.

Last time I helped with a VBS, I was an older teen, it was the Southern Baptist Church I grew up in -- and after the first couple of days they kept me in the office. It seems my notions of God -- God's, like, LOVE, man -- didn't fit the theme.

Go figure. And is it any wonder I finally found this wonderful church? Motto one: "Where head and heart are equal partners in faith." Motto two: "Unapologetically Christian. Unapologetically liberal."

I think seeing those mottos will make yesterday's Prayer of Confession make more sense. Note that it's a corporate prayer, said aloud in unison, and that it starts with us addressing God, and ends with us addressing ourselves.

Lord of Life, we know that being a member of the body of Christ is not the same thing as belonging to a study group, or enjoying intellectual conversation on spiritual topics, or gathering with like-minded liberals. We are the spiritual heirs of those who believed that in the death of Jesus, they had "died" to old ways of being in the world, and been raised with Christ into new life. What would that mean today? How seriously do we take this claim? What would happen if we indeed "buried" our old selves, and accepted grace and forgiveness as the gifts of Easter? This is the heart and soul of the gospel. Beware. Amen.

Beware! Indeed. The Scripture reading was Romans 6: 1-11. It came in the nick of time.

Friday and Saturday, I wanted to drive to Boulder and end up in the county jail. Still might. But for the moment, and minute by minute, the fury I feel for the one who wronged my beloved Dr. ER, and myself, is buried with Jesus, and hope is renewed and alive with Christ.

While I'm on the subject of injustice, and justice, minor and major, I'm thinking very hard about signing up for this 30-week put-feet-to-your-faith program, Just Faith.

I wanted to last year but didn't, figuring I'd have to quit in the middle and move to Colorado. That's what I get for figurin'. So, this year I think I'm going to do it. It fits my church experience the past few years to a T:

The people of Mayflower Congregational UCC church of Mayflower of Oklahoma City invite you to experience Christianity as a way of life, not a set of creeds and doctrines demanding total agreement. We invite you to join us as we seek to recover the meaning of the gospel for our time, looking to scripture, faith, and reason -- interpreted by love. At Mayflower we believe that what Jesus teaches us about God is more important than what the church has taught us about Jesus. We believe in the liberty of of conscience, the responsibility of every believer to work out his or her own salvation, and the obligation of faithful men and women to become partners with God in building the kingdom. We take the Bible seriously, not literally, and believe that in our time the church must recover, above all, its radical hospitality -- welcoming all persons into her midst, without regard to race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or physical abilities.

Amen.

--ER

Sorry to be so cryptic at first. We're still wading through some unexpected debris.

Still juggling shock-sadness (because it involved some personal betrayal); fury (because it involved some more personal betrayal (Dr. ER's boss even lied to *me* personally); and relief (that I didn't quit my job and that we don't now own a house on the Front Range.

A parting of ways is coming betwixt Dr. ER and her employer. That's all there is to report.

We both feel beat up over the past 14 months. Prayers, good vibes, karma, happy-happy thoughts and other vectors for the peace that passes understanding greatly appreciated.

And now I go to the backyard mortar-and-pestle (trusdty Webster kettle grill) to mix a compound to treat sadness-shock-anger-relief: Steak sandwiches a la ER!

--ER

Clarified.























More anon.

--ER

May the best ye've ever seen
Be the warst ye'll ever see.
May the moose ne'er lea' yer aumrie
Wi' a tear-drap in his e'e.
May ye aye keep hail an' hertie
Till ye're auld eneuch tae dee.
May ye aye be jist as happy
As we wiss ye noo tae be.






Paul and Jennifer's Wedding.
Can't wait! Haven't been to a wedding since my own, such as it was. :-) And, in the Oklahoma Capitol Rotunda, no less.

Rockin'.

Where did you get married?

Dr. ER and I got hitched by a justice of the peace in her courtroom in a county courthouse in Texas. Bird and a photographer I assigned were the witnesses. Then we went to a steakhouse. Honeymoon in Fort Worth, Texas, the arts district. :-)

Yourself?


--ER

He is Everything to Me.

--ER

Worth repeating from Alan!

Yes. Count me a redneck for gay rights. In the name of liberty -- as American as apple pie.

If you are an opponent, tell me, please, in what un-American name are you fighting against freedom?

--ER

"The final secret, I think, is this: that the words 'You shall love the Lord your God' become in the end less a command than a promise.

"And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us -- loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us.

"He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief. And, loving him, we will come at last to love each other too so that, in the end, the name taped on every door will be the name of the one we love.

" 'And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you rise.'

"And rise we shall, out of the wilderness, every last one of us, even as out of the wilderness Christ rose before us. That is the promise, and the greatest of all promises."

-- Frederick Buechner, in "A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces" (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984).
-----

"Thou art God. God groks."

-- Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from Mars, in Robert A. Heinlin, "Stranger in a Strange Land" (numerous editions.)

--ER

Bird watched this live last night, and called me immediately to tell me about it. Then she texted me just now to remind me to find it on YouTube. I'm glad she did. Beautiful. Made my eyes leak.

--ER

Note the microphone. These days, it usually implies video.

For the second time today, this old dog, steeped in ink, wedded to paper, will trot out into the world with a video camera -- as well as a still camera, and a notepad and pen, to gather news.

Then, tomorrow, for the first time, I'll edit it myself.

I seldom report these days, in any medium. I'm more of a paper-shuffling editor. But I am jumpin' onto this stuff with all four feet.

It's a brave new world in the news(paper) bidness. Online video is the cutting edge of the present, and it's my future, if I have one in Colorado, in news.

Wish me well!

--ER

Would someone please explain to me how anyone can make any claims whatsoever as to what is "real" and what is not?

Science is still in its kindergarten stage, and religion is in its geriatric stage. Can someone ship us some solid grown-up humans, please? (Kirk? Picard? Y'all out there?!?)

Read: "Cutting Desire: A rare condition compels its sufferers to want to amputate, or paralyze, their own healthy limbs. Inside the strange world of what sufferers call Body Integrity Identity Disorder." It came up in a thread where someone wondered why God doesn't appear to ever heal amputees.

I wish Dr. ER hung around here more often, experimental psychology, and the connections between brain parts and behavior, being her forte. I find the following fascinatin':

They've only been able to conduct three brain scans on those with BIID, so far, but in those, they have found some variation in the right parietal lobe, the area of the brain responsible for creating a "map" or the image of where one's body exists in space. "What's suggested from this is that because of this dysfunction in the right parietal lobe, this sense of unified body image isn't formed," says McGeoch. "The senses don't coalesce. So, for a leg, for example, they can feel that it's there but it doesn't feel like it should be there. It feels surplus. Something's gone wrong."

So, got any surplus parts you don't talk about?

--ER

My eyes, I mean! I am terribly nearsighted. My eyes are shaped like eggs. One of the tests they always do, maybe for glaucoma, they used to do with a big contraption that blew air puffs into each eye. This morning, they numbed my eyes and then the guy poked me in the fricking eyes about a dozen times each with a stylus. Wore me out. Now, the numbness has worn off, my eyes are sore, things are blurry -- and I have hours of computer work to go before I sleep.

All in all, I'd rather be blown, not poked.

(Yes, that's Mr. Magoo.)

--ER

Seriously, I'm not sure I've ever seen this put so clearly and engagingly.

------
(From Frederick Buechner, in "Listening to Your Life," 1992; originally in "Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC," 1973.)


What follows are some practical suggestions on how to read the Bible without tears. Or maybe with them.

1. Don't start at the beginning and try to plow your way straight through to the end. At least not without help. If you do, you're almost sure to bog down somewhere around the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus. Concentrate on the high points at first. There is much to reward you in the valleys too, but at the outset keep to the upper elevations. There are quite a few.

There is the vivid, eyewitness account of the reign of King David, for instance (2 Samuel plus the first two chapters of 1 Kings), especially the remarkable chapters that deal with the last years when the crimes and blunders of his youth have begun to catch up with him. Or the Jospeh stories (Genesis 39-50). Or the Book of Job. Or the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Or the seventh chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, which states as lucidly as it has ever been stated the basic moral dilemma of man and then leads into the eighth chapter, which contains the classic expression of Christianity's basic hope.

2. The air in such upper altitudes is apt to be clearer and brighter than elsewhere, but if you nevertheless find yourself getting lost along the way, try a good Bible commentary which gives the date and historical background of each book, explains the special circumstances which it was written to meet, and verse by verse tries to illumine the meaning of the difficult sections. Even when the meaning seems perfectly clear, a commentary can greatly enrich your understanding. The Book of Jonah, for instance -- only two or three pages long and the one genuine comedy in the Old Testament -- takes on added significance when you discover its importance in advancing the idea that God's love is extended not just to the children of Israel but to all mankind.

3. If you have even as much as a nodding acquaintance with a foreign language, try reading the Bible in that. Then you stand a chance of hearing what the Bible is actually saying instead of what you assume it must be saying because it is the Bible. Some of it you may hear in such a new way that it is as if you had never heard it before. "Blessed are the meek" is the way the English version goes, whereas in French it comes out "Heureux sont les debonnaires" (Happy are the debonair). The debonair of all things! Doors fly open. Bells ring out.

4. If you don't know a foreign language, try some English version that you've never tried beforee -- the New English Bible, Goodspeed's translation, J.B. Phillips's New Testament, or any other you can lay your hands on. The more far-out the better. Nothing could farther out than the Bible itself. The trouble with the King James or Authorized Version is that it is too full of Familar Quotations. The trouble with Familiar Quotations is that they are so familar you don't hear them. When Jesus was crucified, the Romans nailed over his head a sign saying "King of the Jews" so nobody would miss the joke. To get something closer to the true flavor, try translating the sign instead: "Head Jew."

5. It may sound like fortune-telling, but don't let that worry you. Let the Bible fall open in your lap and start there. If you don't find something that speaks to you, let it fall open to something else. Read it as though it were as exotic as the I Ching or the Tarot deck. Because it is.

6. If somebody claims that you have to take the Bible literally, word for word, or not at all, ask him if you have to take John the Baptist literally when he calls Jesus the Lamb of God.

If somebody claims that no rational person can take a book seriously which assumes that the world was created in six days and man in an afternoon, ask him if he can take Shakespeare seriously whose scientific knowledge would have sent a third-grader into peals of laughter.

7. Finally this. If you look at a window, you see fly-specks, dust, the crack where junior's Frisbie hit it. If you look through a window, you see the world beyond.

Something like this is the difference between those who see the Bible as a Holy Bore and those who see it as the Word of God which speaks out of the depths of an almost unimaginable past into the depths of ourselves.

------

Awesome.

--ER

For your consideration: some of the last few pages of John Shelby Spong's "The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love."

I commend the book to the edification of all fundamentalists, Christian, anti-Christian and atheist.

May false gods tumble under Spong's faithful attack on intolerable dogmatism: the god of self, the god of certainty, the god of the "inerrant and infallible Bible."

On Jesus as the first fruits of Homo Spiritus.

--ER

Resolved:

God is helpless to help people without relying on other people.

Subject to revision and restatement. The start of a discussion.

Discuss.

--ER

Idea born at Lee's joint, Strawmen Cometh.

Whoa. I just rediscovered this guy: InternetMonk.com.

I will be rechecking him out. Go y'all therefore and do likewise!

--ER

By The Associated Press

... Non-journalists entering the world of blogs, online feedback forums, online videos and news Web sites provide information that newspapers and other media can't or don't. But many are now turning to professional journalists for help with dilemmas they're facing: When is something libelous? What's the difference between opinion and news? And how do you find public documents? ...

Read all about it.

Bloggin' right -- that is, without libeling somebody -- ain't as easy as bangin' on a keyboard.

--ER

Big loss to journalism. Humongous loss to television journalism. An American loss.

--ER

Paid $4.01 per gallon for gas today on the way to work. For Premium. Most. Ever.

Price check: How much are you paying, and where?

What are you doing without, to cope? I'm eating out less, and brown-bagging it at work more often.

--ER

I was at a bar. Tomfoolery's, in Fort Smith, Ark., drinkin' and singin' karaoke when suddenly everybody, including me, was staring at TV's watching this.

What were you doing?

Why does it matter? Discuss.

--ER

Hobbled by Bush administration hubris, staggering under the weight of fearmongering spin, damn near blinded by the acid of hate -- yet Habeas Corpus lives!

"The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," Justice Kennedy wrote.

Damn straight.

Damn Gitmo.

TRY the sumbitches already. Lock 'em up if they're guilty. Turn 'em loose if they're not -- and if government prosecutors, after six years, don't have a case, then damn them, too.

Vote for Obama!

--ER

Call it ER-enstein's monster post!

Bits of theology and philosophy and science and scientism and faith and doubt and skepticism and religion -- all cobbled together into a stumbling creature staggering under its own weight!

Come on. Help me get it to 400! And then I'll let it die. :-)

--ER

That's a workplace perk I'd like to see: a scream room. So, every hour or so, after I've bitten my lip, swallowed my impatience, sat on my anger and frustration and flirted with a mini-stroke or chest pains -- because NOTHING works the way it's supposed to! -- I could stomp into the scream room, let 'er rip, then calmly stroll back to my desk for another hour of bullshit.

Somebody form a committee.

EFF!

--ER

Sigh. It's come to this. Random cat cartoons. Bird's fault! She sent this to me! And now I have to go find Eames, our new auxiliary cat, to make sure she's not on the other computer. She's just 6 months old. Much too young for this kind of risque humor! :-)

--ER

"There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

Yeah, it's called lying.

Read the press release from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Read the committee report (pdf).

--ER

Idiots. How do writers for Saturday Night Live make it when Faux News preempts whjat used to be SNL's best kind of material?



--ER

Got the post-Dr. ER blues today. She was here Thursday through this early morning.

We just kind of hung out, easing Eames, the new, auxiliary cat -- she of the ear mites! -- into the house where Ice-T, the primary cat, has reigned supreme for two years or so.

Catpeace is ours, at last. They're both in Bird's old room, Ice-T on the bed where he can look out the window, Eames in her little comfy bed.

Next up, to look foreward to, to keep me plodding along in this seemingly untenable life: Taking off the first week of July.

Eames and I will drive to Colorado repeating the trip Ice-T and I took last year, and the adventure! Eames will handle it much better, I'm sure. Ice-T is a puss. Eames has the balls between 'em!

--ER

[Tip o' my Resistol to my friend, (H)apaTheology.]




Another "No You Can't" video:


The first, awesome video: "Yes, We can."




PRAYER OF CONFESSION today at church:

Lord of Life, we know that hope is the one thing for which there is no acceptable alternative. We can easily give up, and believe that faith is about hedging our bets, or storing up credits in the next life. But faith is not about believing stuff in order to get stuff. Faith is about trusting in God's ultimate mercy, and in the eventual victory of good over evil. Help us to plant a tree today under whose branches we will never sit -- but whose shade will keep those who come after us from fainting. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, our Teacher and Lord, we pray, Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING:

Romans 4:13-25

--ER

Dr. ER got me a record player for Christmas. Last time I was back at Mama ER's place, now Brudder's house, I remembered to bring a grocery sack of 45's back. So we had oldtime record hour the other night! What a blast.

First up was a song she had never heard of. It's potentially offensive. But it's funnier'n the one second a Copenhagen spit cup levitates after sittin' on the dash of a pickup, caught in the crosswind of the 2-65 AC, but before it lands in somebody's lap.

"C.B. Savage," by Rod Hart.




Next was THE classic from 1979: "King Tut" by Steve Martin.

Then, and hell, yes, I DID inhale, "Framed," by Cheech & Chong.




Here's another one she'd never heard of, "Welfare Cadillac," a real groaner from 1970 by Guy Drake (dedicated to my favorite commodities relocation technician online, Tugboat Cap'n.




BEST R&R SONG FROM MY YOUTH -- I STILL WANT JOAN JETT.
"I Love Rock 'N Roll," by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts:




Others, in no particular order, but I loved every one of 'em. It's a rather eclectic mix!


"$60 Duck," by Lewie Wickham.

"I'll Never Be Free," by Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius.

"Georgia Keeps Pulling on My Ring," by Conway Twitty.

"I'm Just a Farmer," by Cal Smith.

"Homegrown Tomatoes," by Guy Clark.

"Afternoon Delight," by Starland Vocal Band.

"I Can't Love You Enough," by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty.

"Popcorn," by Hot Butter. (Dr ER made me turn this one off 'cause it was making her crazy. I LOVED it in third grade (1972-1973)!

"Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)," by the Raiders. Still a great song after 37 years.

"The Old man and His Horn," by Gene Watson.

"Puttin on the Ritz," by Taco.

"Sweet, Sweet Smile," by the Carpenters.

Tell yer own flashbacks, y'all!

--ER

Saddened, still, at Sen. Barack Obama abandoning his church. After all the crap thrown on him over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's rhetorical excesses, he up and quits over the smart-ass remarks of a guest preacher?

Gah.

On the Christian right (Hi, EL!), waaaay over there, they're licking their chops, and being more antibiblically judgmental than ever. I mean, sure, judge his integrity, and his guts, because that's what I'm doing. But EL and his ilk continue to judge the veracity of his faith itself, and that is repugnant and wrong.

As I said at EL's place, ignoring his bile:

Of course, I think much less of Obama for quitting his church! A church is NOT its pastor -- although, until the episode at the National Press Club, I had no gripe against Wright. And a church is surely not a guest preacher! Further, I watched the clip of the priest's alleged offense and came away thinking WTH? It's harshness with humor and truth!

Obama quit his chuirch for political expediency. That's all. It takes expediency to succeed in politics, I guess, but I sure don't like it, and I sure think much less of him for doing so. It is a shame on so many levels it makes my heart ache.


On the Christian left (Hi, Geoffrey!), which is as close as my elbow, they're hurting and cussing over the caricature that EL and other righties -- as well as others -- have made of Trinity United Church of Christ and what it's about. (The Rev. Wright did show his ass at the National Press Club, but he had retired from the pulpit by then. Stupid thing to do. But it NOT THE CHURCH that did it.)

As I said at Geoffrey's place:

Obama is no idiot. Obama is, however, making hasty decisions, which makes me hope that if he is president he will surround himself with experience.

It's his vision, and his heretofore demonstrated willingness to be daring, that attract me to him. It hurts me, and makes me think less of him, that he quit his church. Because his church is not just its pastor, past or present, or a guest speaker, or any one short-sighted decision, or one guest speaker -- and THAT is the "teaching moment" that is now lost, sacrificed at the altar of expediency.

His quitting, God help him, gives credence to the Rev. Wright's assertion that Obama is just another politician. I knew he was was. Of course, he is. Of course he has to be, to be elected under present circumstances.

And damned if Obama himself, by his quitting, hasen't extended the present circumstances.

As for my beloved UCC: Look out! Live by the spotlight, die by the spotlight!


Ah, call it holy water under the bridge.

Time to celebrate, such as it is, with Dan at Payne Hollow, and offer congratulations to Sen. Obama and stoke our hope for better days ahead.

Time to gird our loins for the showdown, as it were, with the old-soldier-first, the honorable but outdated Sen. John McCain, and work to rekindle hard-nosed, hard-assed diplomacy.

As I said at EL's place, after his ludicrous rant over what he sees as Obama's "limp-wristed disarmament" views, and EL's shock that we should actually dust off diplomacy and try it for a change:

Has it occurred to anyone besides me that, after blowing and blustering around the Middle East for so long, that the only damn way to get ANY traction over there is to damn near start over -- give 'em enough rope to hang themselves? I mean, if the president of the United States actually dared to sit down across a table from Aminiwhathis-ahad in Iran, mano a mano, eye to eye, giving NOTHING but an ear, and then have Aminiwhathis keep doing what he appears to be doing -- do you think any nation on earth not Iran or a lackey would object if THEN the U.S. kicked Iran ass and took names? Same with the Venezuelan megalomaniac. Same with all of them.

Does anyone think that if we DON'T calm down, rachet the rhetoric down, and sit down with these yahoos, whose infuence and power rests within the vacuum created by the U.S.'s diplomatic ABSENCE -- does anyone think continuing on the way we're going is the way to strategic strength for the U.S., and more peace rather than less in the world?

Pshaw on y'all neo-post-modern-would-be-warrior-faux-conservatives, or whatever you are.

Could anyone have imagined what George W. Bush has wrought, based on his campaigning? On his governership in Texas? No.

Obama's youth and vision are his strength. He's going to be elected. And he's going to have some experience in his administration; they're gonna take diplomacy, and some hard-nosed, hard-assed diplomats out of mothballs, and we ARE going to do things RIGHT on the geo-political stage for a change. We are more than likely going to be in wars in places we've never even heard of, no matter who is president.

But I am so damned tired of shooting first and asking questions later. I WANT this country's president to sit down with those jerks. Rather than build them up, they will shrink back to their actual size vis-a-vis this country, once that vaccuum is gone. And then -- and *then* if they pose actual threats to us, we can war with them in good conscience, and with most of the rest of the world either cheering us on or being quiet while we do what we've got to do!

--ER

Oklahoma weather today:

Earthquakes!

Wildfires! Poor Gotebo (pop. about 230)!

Tornadoes in the forecast! (Don't let the fact that it's just a watch fool you.) It could come a bad-ass situation this evening. We can feel it.)

And the wind has been high, hot, out of the southwest and INCESSANT long enough now to start to piss even ME off -- and I'm not that picky about weather! It's deadly.

WTH's next? Wars and rumours of war? Oh, we already had that. Never mind.

--ER

Which is about where I would expect him to be, actually, hanging out with a down-and-out homeless peep or shivering drunk or shaking addict.

Read all about a statue.

--ER

Real ones, too. Not fluff and filler.

Best thread ever.

--ER

This is cool! Anyone who is a non-traditional (read: older) college student, or who is a perfessor, or used to be, or who otherwise has a loving, or hateful, or love-hate relationship with the college classroom will dig:

Professors Strike Back ...

It's an academic response to RateMyProfessor.com

--ER

Uno. I just stumbled across this nice little piece on Christian inconsistencies. Can I get an Amen? (I'm sure of it).

Two-o. The same blogger suggests that 1 Timothy 4: 1-5 can be seen as gay-friendly. I agree. If not gay-friendly, then it at least is a warning and trememinder that "everything created by God is good, and nothning is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving." Can I get an Amen? (I doubt it.)

Three-o. I stumbled across the above two posts while searching for this quote, from Frederick in "Hannah and Her Sisters," which I've never seen: "You see the whole culture. Nazis, deodorant salesmen, wrestlers, beauty contests, a talk show. Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling? But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up." Can I get an Amen? (We'll see.)

--ER

Apparently, I have worn out a stainless-steel cocktail shaker in 17 months. Bodes well this does not. The damn thing has cracked and leaks!

--ER

And the lessons this little critter, Miss Eames, is imparting have to do with ... GRACE! again!

Dang, it, but Ice-T, our primary cat, will not give the new auxiliary kitty a break. So, I want to dislike him. But I can't because I love him. Yet I love Miss Eames, too.

The question, at first blush, with only a little thought behind it is:

How can my love for both kitties be swayed because one of them, Ice-T, is being natural to himself in being "mean" to the other one? And because the other one, Miss Eames, just appears, for the time being, to be surrendering to the Big Cat?

I held Miss Eames for awhile today and I thought she was purring -- but then I realized she was not; she was trembling. And I loved her more and held her closer.

Does God hold us closer when we're trembling? Because that's as close as we can get to loving God, trembling is all we have in us at the moment?

And I was angry at Ice-T. And I picked him up at one point, when he was threatening Miss Eames, and flung him away, to give Eames some time to get herself together, eat, and poop, and chill, in her own space, and to keep Ice-T from doing something we all three would regret.

Is that what's happening when two people who God so loves get in each other's way? God flings one of us out of the way of the other -- for the sake of both, and for God's own sake?

Feel free to laugh. God works mighty wonders with the critters around us.

--ER