tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58711072012-01-25T17:45:24.751-08:00Lunar SkeletonsAs important as a crypt full of bones on the MoonOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comBlogger1561100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-83536924436552251412012-01-24T18:24:00.000-08:002012-01-25T17:45:24.764-08:00Pastor Chuck Smith and Internet MythsNot long ago, I was reading pastor Chuck Smith's autobiography entitled "Chuck Smith, A Memoir of Grace, as told to Chuck Smith Jr." The book is not that lengthy, and it has turned out to be very interesting on several levels. Recently, Smith publicly announced that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer. So he is facing a very serious challenge.
But in connection with his book, what I want to Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-84401544190858864312011-12-04T12:37:00.001-08:002011-12-04T17:38:15.914-08:00Printed in ChinaMy wife recently bought for herself an ESV version of the Bible, published by Crossway, headquartered in Wheaton, Illinois. In the colophon, near the bottom it says "printed in China."
Somewhere there is something ironic about this. The communist government of the People's Republic of China has had a long history of persecuting and harassing xtians with various degrees of harshness. But now we Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-25311211161011520022011-11-23T18:30:00.000-08:002011-11-30T20:17:36.896-08:00Never Before So MuchNever before in human history have so many unhinged people with too much to say had so much access to so much bandwidth—thus, the Internet.
So much depends on the speed at which one types.
So much depends on that red wagon in the front yard.
So much depends on the European Central Bank.
Sleep texting is the newest somnambulist malady.
So much depends on Greece defaulting on its debt.
So much Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-38785786958548853122011-09-03T16:08:00.000-07:002011-09-03T19:11:23.895-07:00Funeral at Genesee, Idaho, 2011 August 1On top of a rounded hill sprinkled with trees which overlooked the small town, the man they buried that day, name Joseph Schooler, came from a family that had farmed the land there near Genesee for years and years. The wooden casket lay on a bier positioned next to the grave. The casket itself had heads of wheat carved into the light brown wood, a beautifulOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-66284869946192424132011-08-19T20:00:00.000-07:002011-09-05T11:27:09.657-07:00Reflections on Zyngaism
By now everyone has heard of Zynga's social network games, which you can easily find as Facebook applications. Facebook constantly advertises them and they are nearly unavoidable. You have FarmVille, FrontierVille, CityVille, and dozens of other games that you can play inside your browser when you are logged onto Facebook, provided your web browser can run the Adobe Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-16393523762195447532011-07-16T13:12:00.000-07:002011-07-16T13:33:08.456-07:00My Blogger stats indicate that most of what little traffic getting directed here comes from frankviola.org, which is curious since Frank Viola hasn't been blogging about anything since May 11th. But howsoever people get directed here, let me say to them thanks for visiting.As I said back on May 30th, I don't think Blogger's format is best for presenting lengthy text. However, Google's Sites does Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-5492191136189611692011-07-01T20:22:00.000-07:002011-07-03T17:47:31.848-07:00Nine Negatives About The Revival:The revival will not be televised.The revival will not be franchised.The revival will not be sold on NYSE or NASDAQ.The revival will not be copyrighted©.Nor will it be trademarked™.Nor will it be patented®.The New York Times will not report it.The revival will not charge for admission tickets.The revival will require no stinking badges.Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-49959833476649354452011-05-30T19:12:00.000-07:002011-05-30T19:45:37.590-07:00Random Rambling (revised)I've decided that lengthy serialized fiction really doesn't work well in Blogger's format. That is the reason why I've removed the story Exhuming the Mantle. No doubt my numerous fans will soon start clamoring for me to continue the story since they'll want to know what has happened to the bones of Lonnie Frisbee and Kathryn Kuhlman which have been nefariously Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-15071392272549488312011-05-22T13:56:00.000-07:002011-05-22T19:17:42.058-07:00The Bloke Katzbalger Thesis RevisitedAlmost exactly two years ago, I discoursed in my famous essay that the Church has always had a certain percentage of odd, cranky people. What the internet has done is give them high amplification beyond anything they could have had in years gone by. Some of these cranky people run discernmentalist websites. And it appears that a number of them manage to own Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-62767234373786351392011-05-07T15:15:00.000-07:002011-05-07T16:02:56.051-07:00Lost PostcardWhile making a trip to Starbucks the other day, I found a postcard lying in the parking lot. The front of the postcard had a reproduction of a very old, grainy, black and white photograph. In it there are three women wearing long ruffled dresses and enormous hats repleted with what looks like flowers or feathers. They are standing on what appears to be a train station platform, for Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-91197320550489829522011-05-01T19:48:00.000-07:002011-05-02T18:06:31.517-07:00Just a moment ago, CBS television news was reporting that Osama Bin Laden is dead. You mean it's taken this long to get around to saying this? I thought everyone knew that Osama has been dead a long time now. If they have retrieved the body, then I guess it's a big win.Addendum 5/2/11: Well, from all indications, they really got him. They had solid enough information on where Osama was hiding in Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-44745538828090603342011-05-01T13:26:00.000-07:002011-05-24T19:12:23.321-07:00Winning the War of R2PShock and awe them with our Tolerance,Overwhelm them with our DiversityThen smash 'em with our Sensitivity,A kinetic action where no one bleeds.We’ll show 'em how Progressive we do be.Free speech for me but not for theeSuch double standards we all can seeWe learnt at Open Minded UniversityAlong with other strange perversity.For we must not offend the R.O.P.Nor our Saudi Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-85689754946046527212011-04-29T13:55:00.000-07:002012-01-22T17:47:43.354-08:00Exhuming The MantleIn the second chapter of the book of II kings, we read how Elijah, the prophet from Tishbe, while still in the flesh departed this world by means of a specially prepared chariot of fire, drawn by horses of fire and powered by a whirlwind. His blazing departure to be taken up into one of the unseen heavens does seem fitting since Elijah's most notable ability manifested itself by his calling fire Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-90710703114695390012010-11-07T13:15:00.000-08:002010-11-13T15:03:30.145-08:00Book ReviewTitle: The Holy Spirit is Not for SaleAuthor: J. Lee GradyNot long ago I heard of Grady's book, picked it up at Borders Books, and read through it. Grady is best known for being a contributing editor and columnist at Charisma magazine. And his recent book is published by Chosen Books, which is a division of Baker Publishing Group. The paperback edition I purchased runs to about 235 Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-66744831064710573882010-10-09T18:40:00.001-07:002010-11-28T13:42:17.748-08:00Life in Limbo, § 0.1 —Limbo on the near side of the Acheron river is crowded with buildings. These are the "soul apartments" which house the dead who couldn't afford the boat fare that the dread ferryman Charon charged to carry anyone across the river. The streets wind and twist and are very narrow, and the weather never knows a sunny day. Instead, the cold and damp predominate over a perpetual Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-40387744925960385392010-10-09T18:30:00.000-07:002010-11-28T13:46:08.193-08:00Life in Limbo, § 0.2 —Wal-Mart's ubiquity astonishes the living, as its big box stores pop up like mushrooms across the American landscape. Likewise, in Limbo there exists big box stores at nearly every street corner where the dead souls can go shopping. Run exclusively by Hecate Enterprises Chthonic Mercantile, Inc., these stores do not include a grocery section primarily because the souls in Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-66464458218960675102010-10-09T18:20:00.000-07:002010-10-09T19:40:20.719-07:00Life in Limbo, § 0.3 —Vehicular transportation doesn't exist in Limbo, at least not the motorized kind. Planes, trains, and automobiles are not available. To travel anywhere, the soul has two possible recourses: either (1) use your own two feet, or (2) learn to ride a unicycle. Souls do not fly nor can they transvect themselves from one place in Limbo to another, and only a few have the poise andOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-37985007897040114232010-10-09T18:10:00.000-07:002010-11-28T14:14:20.549-08:00Life in Limbo, § 0.4 —Everybody is dying to know the answer to the big question on everyone's mind: "Is there sex in Limbo?" I regret that some people will be disappointed beyond measure by my response and consequently will think ill of me and decry my veracity; nonetheless, I must bear the duty of dispassionately reporting the facts regarding the netherworld, and Limbo in particular, whatsoever Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-43208730274542355312010-09-26T13:30:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:16:55.086-07:00Danse Macabre VIIIWhile going on a doggy stroll in Limbo, Death's mordacious pet dog Cerberus spotted the netherworld ferryman Charon sitting in his boat at the wharf by the Acheron river. Today Charon looked more tuckered out than usual as he smoked a Marlboro cigarette. "Well, how's it going today, Charon?" Cerberus asked. "Meh," said Charon after taking a drag on his smoke, "I had a busy day. Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-72020228174584771382010-09-26T13:20:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:15:43.355-07:00Danse Macabre VII"Well, how did your secret meeting at the White House go with the President and the Secretary of the Treasury?" asked Death's mordacious pet dog Cerberus. Unlike most dogs, Cerberus can talk, although the story that he has three heads remains a myth. "Oh, the meeting. Ah, yes," answered Death with a bit of teasing coyness, "We had many sensitive matters to discuss, which is the Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-41743239915366688572010-09-26T13:10:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:14:05.475-07:00Danse Macabre VIMost of the world knew this academcian for the enormous number of books he had written, which crowded the bookshelves at Borders, Barnes & Nobel, and even Wal-Mart. Their titles all varied, but the subtitles could just as well have all been the same: something along the lines of "everybody else has misinterpreted what so-and-so said, but I, the guy with the enormous brain and a Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-85994495283686772012010-09-26T12:50:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:12:14.893-07:00Danse Macabre VDeath was once invited to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show for an televised interview in front of a live audience. He asked his mordacious dog Cerberus if he thought this might be a fun thing to do. "Well, you're in the news all the time, so you're a little over-exposed. But what the heck if you're on her show?" was Cerberus's snappy answer. During the interview, Oprah asked Death Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-84549789081968237452010-09-26T12:40:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:11:13.006-07:00Danse Macabre IVThe film producer had been on a roll for quite a few years, and had climbed to the pinnacle of success, fame, and money. His peers in the industry regarded his "documentary films" as mordant and hard hitting, and doubly worthy of the highly prestigious "Golden Beer Can Award." Indeed, by the time the producer received this coveted award, his oeuvre ranged over a wide territory. Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-4470435457156360062010-09-26T12:30:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:10:11.445-07:00Danse Macabre IIIThis famous televangelist, a big favorite who often appeared on TBN, preached "prosperity," which amounted to saying that "if you tithe to me your money, then your bank accounts will be blessed tenfold and more." He cheerfully accepted credit cards as well, but whether or not anyone else's bank account got blessed remains a matter of debate. One thing is certain however, that Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-34965277066730035332010-09-26T12:20:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:08:27.587-07:00Danse Macabre IILate one evening, the congressman got together for a friendly game of canasta with some of his munificent lobbyist friends, who work for certain extremely large banks and investment firms, during which the lobbyists wanted to clarify exactly how they wanted the new regulatory laws written. After all, these regulations had to be constructed just right in order to ensure that their Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-73067422184983641242010-09-26T12:10:00.000-07:002010-09-26T13:05:28.535-07:00Danse Macabre IHe was one of the chief mucketymucks at Goldman Sachs. And indeed the complex credit default swaps he had engineered, which covered up the extent of the insolvency of the Greek government, stand out as remarkable achievements of financial chicanery that would have made the great J.P. Morgan blush. For this, the company, often derided by various wags as "the great vampire squid," Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-74262667111953486912010-09-12T11:56:00.000-07:002011-09-18T15:37:46.665-07:00The Litmus Test
Back in the summer of 2010, Angelo M. Codevilla wrote the essay that shook the country. Appearing in the American Spectator, he entitled it "America's Ruling Class and The Perils of Revolution." Codevilla has just recently come out with an expanded book version where he elaborates even further on the points made in his essay. I plan on getting and reading the book.
Codevilla Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-48284895281849248102009-08-15T17:11:00.000-07:002010-03-16T19:24:37.925-07:00I finished reading Bill Jackson's book "The Quest for the Radical Middle," and soon it will be going back to that library down in Alabama where it was borrowed from.Jackson's book was very interesting. It's one of those books that really should come out in a second edition, since it would be improved with expansion and revision. But I'm not going to write out a review of the book other than Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-61022548492961043122009-08-09T15:49:00.000-07:002010-03-16T19:24:37.926-07:00Besides Bill Jackson's book "The Quest for the Radical Middle," I am also reading Carol Wimber's memoir about her husband John Wimber. It's entitled "The Way It was." Like the Jackson book, I had to obtain it through an interlibrary loan, only this time Carol's book had to come all the way from the Wheaton College library in Illinois. Carol's writing style is simple and direct and conversational.Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-30899351624048831262009-08-05T04:54:00.000-07:002010-03-16T19:24:37.927-07:00Using an interlibrary loan, I obtained a copy of the book "The Quest for the Radical Middle" by Bill Jackson, which concerns the history of the Vineyard movement and John Wimber. My local library had to send all the way to Alabama to find this book.Recently I became aware of Jackson's book, published back in 1999, and I very much wanted to read it, especially to fill in some of the gaps in my Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-37890269477788850852009-07-28T19:07:00.000-07:002011-03-27T14:57:17.575-07:00John Derbyshire wrote up a interesting article, entitled "Wiki Wars" regarding everybody's favorite Omphalos of Knowledge & Wisdom, also known as Wikipedia.I could not pass up pointing out what Derbyshire wrote because he pretty much echoes my own observations about Wikipedia:That’s Wikipedia for you. They can say what they like about you, employing any level of sub-literacy for the purpose, and Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-82349223955324895452009-07-20T17:23:00.000-07:002009-08-15T09:41:41.536-07:00Up until yesterday I never heard of the lawn game called ladder ball, which is sometimes called "redneck golf" since the bolas are often simple golf balls that had been drilled through and tied together with some heavy string. In all the time I lived in SoCal, I never once encountered ladder ball being played by anyone. A friend had invited us over for dinner at his place out in the boondocks andOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-81495652446985800632009-05-30T09:00:00.001-07:002009-05-30T10:17:22.269-07:00Book ReviewTitle: By What AuthorityAuthor: Richard QuebedeauxMany writers have wastebooks, in which they constantly jot down notes and other half-baked thoughts. Some people might think that Lunar Skeletons is my wastebook, but it isn't. My actual wastebook, where I keep my crankier and more demented scribblings, is a nice ringed notebook acquired from someone who in turn had acquired it at the Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-38335145155738728582009-05-24T06:47:00.000-07:002009-08-14T20:27:13.299-07:00Well, I finished reading Thomas Merton's autobiography The Seven Story Mountain. And having mentioned this, I am sure Bro. Bloke will vehemently suspect me of being…gasp…"contemplative."But Merton's book was fascinating, although there were a couple of sections where I thought he was working a little too hard trying to be profound. But how he could have done better is hard to say; he is Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-16850893711482726982009-05-23T12:07:00.000-07:002012-01-20T18:42:27.252-08:00The Bloke Katzbalger ThesisAuthor and apologist Richard Abanes has reported about the attack being made by some captious people, who run a well known ODM, an attack directed against Calvary Chapel, which is Chuck Smith's famous church down in SoCal. This came about because Paul Smith recently lost his job there. What Abanes reported about the situation can be read in his article at Crosswalk. Also, the acronym ODM was Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-62179339698289492172009-05-10T17:35:00.000-07:002009-08-12T19:57:11.274-07:00This morning we went to the first worship service the Salvation Army held at the newly opened Kroc Center in Coeur d'Alene. If I were to describe the service, I would say it was more on the formal side, but not much different from how I remember things growing up in a Southern Baptist church, although the Salvation Army belongs more to the Wesleyan-holiness wing of evangelicaldom, which is an Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-25536758569078307032009-05-04T20:33:00.000-07:002009-05-04T20:34:27.635-07:00Book ReviewTitle: A Brief History of the FutureAuthor: Jacques AttaliThe blurb states that Attali is…an economist, historian, cultural critic, and one of the world's most respected political thinkers. He cofounded and served as the first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He is the president of Pla.Net Finance, an international non-profit organization assisting Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-3355105756466164582009-03-21T07:22:00.000-07:002010-03-16T19:24:37.928-07:00Book ReviewTitle: All Things Are PossibleAuthor: David Edwin Harrell Jr. David Edwin Harrell Jr. wrote a fascinating book entitled "All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revival in Modern America". It primarily covers two periods: the modern tent revivalists who had their greatest heyday in the years from 1947 to 1958, and the fainter echo which Harrell termed the "charismatic Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-75928335404017147532009-03-06T21:44:00.000-08:002009-03-21T13:10:53.123-07:00Book ReviewTitle: Reimagining ChurchAuthor: Frank ViolaIn his book, Frank Viola does present a serious thesis that should be given attention. In fact, it's so serious that all the pastors in America need to put their heads together and come up with some kind of irrefragable rebuttal, because in effect Viola is saying that the entire raison d'être for their salaried positions is built on nothing Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-72128728386819374392009-01-17T19:53:00.001-08:002009-01-19T21:31:19.648-08:00Dear Mr. Al GoreI wish to thank you for your response to my previous letter. I realize that it is stressful to wake yourself from your annual winter hibernation, which is why you are scarcely to be found on the lecture circut during the winter months. Nonetheless, you took the effort to send some warmer air our way, and because of that we here in North Idaho have many reasons to rejoice since nowOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-34154019629898202452009-01-13T18:14:00.001-08:002009-08-15T18:06:51.892-07:00Book ReviewTitle: Season of Splender—The Court of Mrs. Astor in Gilded Age New YorkAuthor: Greg KingThorstein Veblen once talked about the conspicuous consumption of the leisure class. He wasn't kidding.I found this out reading Greg King's well researched book on the heyday of the ultra-rich and their social lives in New York city, back in the late 19th Century. I've heard the names of Astor and Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-36405141774009413842008-12-26T14:21:00.000-08:002008-12-26T14:43:21.049-08:00Dear Mr. Al Gore,A "white Christmas" never happened in SoCal, all during the time I lived there. On the other hand, you should come here to Land-In-Between, where we had it, and not only did we have it, we had it in spades. Our whole town looks snowed-in and buried. And our snow shovels dug and dug, moving snow from here to there. But today, a break in the weather finally came (see picture), and Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-83489820123256104192008-12-24T14:22:00.001-08:002008-12-24T14:33:38.614-08:00After the snow shoveling around the house had been completed, and since there was a break in the weather and the streets were plowed, and since the temperatures had climbed back up closer to our usual December winter average, we decided to reward ourselves: We went out for burgers at Nosworthy's Hall of Fame, a local sports pub that is North Idahoan in an especially authentic way. We don't have Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-43341694795914330342008-12-23T15:02:00.000-08:002009-08-15T09:40:56.363-07:00Here in Land-In-Between, the Idaho panhandle, the winter is now coming close to breaking the all-time 1915 record for snowfall. My life has been wasting away with neverending snow shoveling, and the roofers who I hired have just left after clearing off my roof, so I can be ready for the next snowstorm without worrying that my roof will cave in. It took four young, strong guys almost a hour, and Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-27189437936476103652008-12-13T16:16:00.000-08:002008-12-13T19:51:35.518-08:00Today in my land of exile we had our first serious snow. And the next few days will be wintry cold.While walking around at Shopko, I counted at least six Mennonite ladies doing their shopping, which I guess would be for Christmas. Most of the major retail outlets are concentrated here, and apparently every so often the Mennonite women will undertake a group shopping expedition. There's a large Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-65169830041086030492008-11-08T15:13:00.000-08:002010-01-02T21:27:59.819-08:00Yesterday, my friend Mark made good on his bet with me and paid for my drink at Starbucks that morning. He was surprised that Obama won the election. On the other hand, there were times I thought that McCain would get it.I am so glad I don't have to see any more poltical ads on television. And what is odd is the job that is now being done on Sarah Palin by campaign insiders. How Palin has been Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-72808034070826261362008-09-07T13:52:00.000-07:002010-01-02T21:28:28.711-08:00The Venti Mocha BetI now have a bet going with a friend of mine. If Obama wins in November, my friend Mark has to buy me a venti mocha at Starbucks. Otherwise, I have to buy him one.At this point in time, however, it looks like Obama has more to fear from some of his friends doing him damage, given how berserk they have gone about Palin.† So I am a little concerned about losing my bet. But we Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-55978654747550577702008-08-31T14:35:00.000-07:002010-01-02T21:28:16.507-08:00McCain's Last RevengeSo McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the Veep. Some people think this was a chancy move that comes from desperation. On the other hand, McCain's pick has made other people get downright hysterical.¹It will be interesting to watch how the MSM treats Palin over the long haul, especially after the initial charm has worn off and they start digging into her background. ButOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-90536456796269421792008-07-08T14:07:00.000-07:002009-08-13T21:00:29.596-07:00I am currently reading Brian "Head" Welch's autobiography entitled "Save Me From Myself". I might review it later, but one thing for sure, it's less disturbing to read than "The Faithful Departed" by Philip F. Lawler.Brian Welch's website is here.Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-17666000653212499882008-04-20T14:54:00.000-07:002009-08-15T08:48:13.081-07:00I started looking at Philip Bobbitt's book "Terror and Consent," and in the midst of all his plodding verbosity, it was pretty obvious off the bat what he was pushing: Bobbitt wants some kind of "world government." I also noticed the interesting rhetorical trick he attempted to pull in his book, which was that of expanding the meaning of the word "terrorist" to the point of being ridiculous. Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-41732310582842121362008-04-19T15:49:00.000-07:002009-08-13T20:40:52.068-07:00I just came back from seeing Ben Stein's documentary "Expelled." It was well done and made clever use of old time black-and-white video clips and other graphics. The background music was pleasant and unintrusive. And of course Ben Stein brings to the narration his renown dead-pan manner. In the movie there were several points of subtle hilarity, which some people in the audience picked up on, andOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-74257847464348935782008-04-05T20:52:00.000-07:002010-01-02T21:23:10.796-08:00There was a dream, and in the dream he saw three things:He as sitting in the midst of a congregation, and a pastor was preaching to the people. But what was strange was that the preacher had a blindfold pulled over his eyes so that he could not see.Next, he saw there was set up on the midst of the congregation many rows of shelves, upon which were all sorts of merchandise. The people in the Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-26484916295385375502008-03-29T19:01:00.000-07:002010-01-03T06:52:58.995-08:00Here in Land-In-Between we had five inches of snow this morning, and here it is already Spring and April is just a few days away. The robins are getting ready to lay their eggs, and they must be freaking out. How are they going to gobble up worms with all this snow on the ground?I wish Al Gore would hurry up and push the global warming button.Earlier I said I was reading "Pagan Christianity?" by Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-68604884132228506972008-03-10T19:31:00.000-07:002009-08-15T08:23:01.995-07:00I've heard someone mention Rick Joyner's "prophetic bulletins", which come in downloadable Adobe reader pdf format. So I decided to check out the latest one for March 2008, available here.I took a look and, for me, it was a little disappointing to discover that it consisted mostly of political bloviation. Now Joyner is entitled to his political views as much as anybody else, but I fail to Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-82187948795576934732008-03-08T12:34:00.000-08:002008-11-23T11:35:06.480-08:00Today, I took the snow tires off the truck. Spring-like weather seems now to have arrived finally. And the snow has melted back from its previous abnormal Siberian level to what is now more normal for here in Podunk Resort City, Land-In-Between. The amount of snow still on the ground is more like what we would get in a normal winter. This year Nature had this perverse desire to go contrary to Al Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-69987592758044206982008-03-02T14:31:00.000-08:002009-08-14T20:07:47.161-07:00I am currently reading Darwin Day in America by John G. West. The books's subtitle is "How our politics and culture have been dehumanized in the name of Science", and it deals with how materialistic philosophy has infiltrated and corrupted pretty much everything, to put it briefly.I haven't gotten too deep into the book but so far it's been very interesting. And some of the stuff West touches Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-51846253706590322842008-02-15T12:56:00.000-08:002012-01-18T19:16:30.196-08:00Book Review: The Politics of HeavenTitle: The Politics of Heaven—American in Fearful times
Author: Earl Shorris
Publisher: W.W. Norton and Company
A Very Very Brief Summary of the Book:
Woe is us! The FDR New Deal is gone, gone, gone. The bad people¹ have taken over America. Who to blame? Why it's mostly the fault of all those crazy Bible-thumping fundie xtians². Woe is us!
Recommendation:
This staggering work of heartbreaking Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-40701950386962745892008-02-15T07:14:00.000-08:002009-08-15T07:41:23.585-07:00Well, we've had enough snow here in Land-In-Between to suffice for two-and-a-half winters. A friend told me that we broke a record going all the way back to 1915. And even though we have had melty conditions now for over a week, it still boggles my mind how much snow we still have on the ground. But I am thankful to finally have a rest from all that snow shoveling. Now the snow berms have melted Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-85021178754061458732008-01-06T16:26:00.000-08:002010-03-16T19:27:38.676-07:00Arch-paleocon Daniel Larison sometimes has some interesting political analyses about our current election goings-on. And lately his prose has gotten a tad more readable—which I think might have something to do with not sprinkling lengthy chunks of material in middle of sentences using parentheses, or at least not doing it so often. I spotted this quote of his that has a Menckenesque quality: "…Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-22130714353967423882008-01-01T09:38:00.000-08:002008-01-01T16:22:18.569-08:00Last night, staying up a while for New Year's Eve, the Ms. and I were watching the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performing live on public television. To see such musical talent on display made me wonder if the stuff we have in church can even called "music". The Church once had Bach, now it has Rap.This is sort of an addendum to my previous posting.Explanatory Note for Coastal, Blue-State Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-80811700981418591412007-11-22T09:23:00.000-08:002010-03-16T19:24:37.930-07:00Recently I got a hold of Allan Anderson's book "An Introduction to Pentecostalism—Global Charismatic Christianity". It so happens that Anderson, a professor at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., was an acquaintance of the pastor at our church here in Land-In-Between.Part One of Anderson's book, which was entitled "Historical Development of Pentecostal Distinctives", was interesting and Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-49953577899258885272007-11-18T14:17:00.001-08:002009-10-15T18:10:57.227-07:00I just got back from visiting Southern California (or "SoCal"), where I grew up, and where I once lived for many years. This is the first time I've seen the area for about fourteen years. We were down to visit some of my wife's relatives. Here are some of my notes:If the place were the planet Mars, it couldn't have felt more alien to me now. Everything seemed altered. The land I knew once had Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-67560453973796788422007-09-23T15:24:00.000-07:002009-08-14T20:59:40.568-07:00Yesterday, I picked up from the new book shelf at the library a recent book by Jonathan Chait. It's full title is "The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics".The book is definitely worth reading, but the subtitle is somewhat misleading because it's only in the first chapter that Chait deals with the subject of economics as such. There he Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-55367788284611450982007-09-21T19:12:00.001-07:002009-08-13T20:36:30.934-07:00James Howard Kuntsler is sometimes called the Curmudgeon of Saratoga Springs.Now I've read James Kuntsler's book The Long Emergency, and even if one doesn't agree with his basic thesis, he is nonetheless an interesting writer who has an important point worth considering¹.His thesis is really quite simple: over the last fifty years or more, all of America's economy and infrastructure has been Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-45820998160675999582007-09-05T18:20:00.000-07:002010-03-16T18:51:19.808-07:00There are three mysterious triangular numbers in the New Testament. The first is 153 which occurs in John 21:11. The second is 276 which occurs in Acts 27:37. And the third is 666 which occurs in Revelations 13:18.These three numbers have certain curious relationships with each other, which I will endeavor to illuminate.First, there are some elementary properties we should notice. Using the Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-30275796079091996872007-08-09T17:37:00.000-07:002009-08-15T09:27:26.467-07:00I came across this interesting blog, the CCM Patrol,* which, among other things, specializes in skewering the Contemporary Xtian Music Industry for the rubbish it sells. And I think that industry has long needed skewering and has been overdue for it. The blogger at CCM Patrol is very blunt, even gruff. Here's a sample of his bluntness:Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Christian music websitesOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-50553849971523257212007-07-28T19:05:00.000-07:002008-11-23T07:36:02.238-08:00Although I doubt it will ever happen, I hope the pastors of some churches I know read this. Maybe it might do some good. I don't know. Anyhow, I needed to get this off my chest because it's been bothering me lately:Off and on in the past, I've pointed out Steve Shultz's ridiculously commercialized web site "Elijah List". Since then it hasn't changed in the slightest, for it's just as unsightly asOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-22098658358045530752007-07-08T13:04:00.000-07:002009-01-13T18:12:15.874-08:00I am currently reading a recently published book, which turned up on the new book shelf at my local library, by the well known author Francis Fukuyama. It is entitled "American at the Crossroads—Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy".I'm about half-way through it and so far Fukuyama has proven himself to be a excellent writer, who elucidates his points clearly and in a sensibly Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-13571230742080048622007-07-05T07:23:00.000-07:002008-11-24T18:11:16.479-08:00Yesterday, I went to the 4th of July parade here in Podunk City. It was a very warm and sunny day, down in the main street. The parade began at 11 o'clock and lasted for about two hours. Ms. Moonbones and I were there, along with several of my in-laws.It had everything that you probably would encounter in any town in Land-In-Between. There was the local National Guard, lots of veteran groups, Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-73205794928074007072007-06-27T20:59:00.000-07:002010-01-02T21:25:49.733-08:00Francis Schaeffer died in 1984.Before he died, the last book he published was entitled "The Great Evangelical Disaster". I still have the same copy I bought all those years ago. Today, twenty-three years later, I can look around at this republic of ours, the United States, and what do I find? I see a society that is literally crumbling right before my eyes because of its incurable sickness. Our Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-6305019409735717222007-06-23T21:56:00.000-07:002009-08-14T21:00:41.584-07:00I am currently reading Barnaby Rogerson's book entitled "The Heirs of Islam—Islam's First Century and the Origin of the Sunni-Shia Split."Rogerson gave a very readable account of the development of, and the conquests by, Islam under the first few caliphs, back in the 7th Century. The book is interesting and well written, although Rogerson isn't very shy about his pro-muslim sympathies. Sometimes Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-26456504375452671422007-06-03T15:37:00.000-07:002009-08-15T09:23:14.805-07:00Why is church "youth band" music so horrible?Today, the pastors had the youth band come and lead the worship this Sunday morning. The young lead singer was not very good, to put it gently. And Ms. Moonbones, who is a good judge of music, tells me his voice was barely "bubble gum" quality. The accompanying girl vocalists didn't harmonize at all. But what was painfully noticible was that the lead Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-16590584907848440002007-05-27T17:21:00.000-07:002010-03-16T19:24:37.931-07:00Today is Pentecost.And I am currently reading through Grant Wacker's recent book entitled "Heaven Below—Early Pentecostals and American Culture". I have some criticisms of his book which I might talk about later.If I were to describe in a short phrase what the book is all about, it would be "sophisticated, worldly-wise modernist takes a look at the whacky primitivist xtians."Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-65055725725509779692007-05-24T18:19:00.000-07:002009-01-13T18:12:15.876-08:00I just finished the recent book by Susan Wise Bauer entitled The History of the Ancient World. It's a very good read and puts in one volume an compact overview of ancient history up till the time of the Roman emperor Constantine. Ancient history is fascinating for me. I could hardly put the book down.I did notice that toward the beginning of the book, the chapters tend to be shorter. That's Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-21744709853532640592007-05-13T19:04:00.000-07:002007-05-14T17:46:17.481-07:00Today was Mother's Day. About a half-hour before church, we went over to Starbucks for some liquid wake-up. On Ms. Moonbone's cup, the following was printed: The Way I See It #225People don't read enough. And what reading we do is cursory, without absorbing the subtleties and nuances that lie deep within—Wow, you've stopped paying attention, haven't you? People can't even read a coffee cup Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-41793402443395182162007-04-28T20:11:00.000-07:002009-01-13T18:12:15.877-08:00The Moonbones Mini Book Review: John Donne, The Reformed Soul by John Stubbs.So far I've read several biographies. Of those, the two people whose lives have engrossed me the most were Aimee Semple McPherson and John Donne. I guess it's because they both were xtians and both had convoluted edges about their lives. By different routes, they both ended up being preachers.Back in 2004, the Royal Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-60142597880458004122007-04-21T09:00:00.000-07:002009-08-12T17:32:20.533-07:00I am currently reading Jeffery L. Sheler's book "Believers—A Journey Into Evangelical America". Mr. Sheler is a billed as a "Contributing Editor for Religion" for the U.S. News & World Report.He's written a very interesting book, but he tries to pass himself off as someone who is an "insider" in the culture and therefore possesses special insight that his colleagues in the news business lack. Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-2592556006814682012007-04-14T13:32:00.000-07:002009-08-15T08:31:01.504-07:00If today's seeker-sensitive pastor had confronted the Samaritan woman at the well, this is what might have transpired. The pastor is dressed in a cool hawaiian shirt.Place: Jacob's Well at Sychar. Time: Noonday. It's hot.Pastor: Hi there.Woman: Oh. Hello.Pastor: I notice you're carrying a water jar.Woman: Huh. Yes, I am. What's it to you?Pastor: Well, I know that Samaritans enjoy pure clean Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-48397449690690209132007-04-08T13:48:00.000-07:002008-11-21T19:36:11.115-08:00It's very odd that neither Bryan A. Garner's "A Dictionary of Modern American Usage" nor Wilson Follett's "Modern American Usage" nor H.W. Fowler's "Modern English Usage" have an entry for the word "fundamentalist".Yet it is such a peculiar word, and it gets tossed around so much nowadays. And lots of seemingly disparate groups of people get lumped together using this all-embracing word. For Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-36571977597614343082007-03-31T18:24:00.000-07:002009-09-06T12:01:20.800-07:00Currently I'm reading P.J. O'Rourke's little book entitled On The Wealth of Nations. In it he tries to explain, in condensed form, Adam Smith's weightier tome published back in 1776.My only complaint about O'Rourke's writing style is his desire always to be jocular. He'll give a pithy quotation from Adam Smith and then try to attach to it some funny quip of his own. It gets in the way sometimes, Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-54353638788044706842007-03-27T17:57:00.000-07:002009-08-14T21:08:04.721-07:00The Moonbones Mini Book Review: Pessimism by Joshua Foa Dienstag.Dienstag did an excellent job covering the "pessimist" Enlightenment philosophers, and his book was very readable. Now the biggies among the Pessimists were Camus, Cioran, Freud, Leopardi, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and Unamuno—though their ranking may not be in that order. Some were bigger Pessimists than others. For some Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-45181543304426951062006-12-29T18:42:00.000-08:002009-08-14T19:44:45.928-07:00I'm currently reading through a three volume history by Lord John Julius Norwich. For enjoyable reading, it has plenty of everything one could want in history: wars, riots, intrigues, treachery, betrayals, palace coups, greed, debauchery, strange turns of events, strange peoples, unexplained mysteries, religious tumults, murders, meyhem, tortures, mutilations, parricides, fratricides, suicides, Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1165803825616303682006-12-10T17:51:00.000-08:002008-11-27T10:09:57.788-08:00While at one of my favorite coffee dispensaries, the Kootenai Coffee Company, here in Land-In-Between, I chatted with one of our pastors yesterday. And during the course of the conversation, I mentioned that Benny Hinn was taking collections for acquiring a private jet. Then I asked if he had any thoughts about Benny Hinn. In so many words, his response was that he tried to refrain from having Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1165801739194757302006-12-10T16:57:00.000-08:002009-08-14T19:40:03.169-07:00I do keep a dream diary, a noctuary. I try to record any dreams that seem particularly noteworthy. Here is one that I continue to vividly remember, which occured sometime during the summer, although after checking my noctuary it appears I neglected to record it:It was evening, and I was standing outside the entrance to a church. The doors were open, and I could see inside a service going on, withOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1165284826160349652006-12-06T19:39:00.000-08:002010-01-02T21:02:17.890-08:00As someone who believes there can be a genuine "prophetic ministry" in the church, it is nonetheless disturbing to me that this website—which evidently aspires to promote this sort of ministry—is so effusively larded up with commercialism and advertising, besides being rather clumsily designed.But I often wonder. Why is it that so much of what xtian "ministries" do nowadays, especially on the WebOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1165199332838831822006-12-03T18:13:00.000-08:002009-08-14T22:06:29.937-07:00On Friday night I finally watched "Polar Express". The idea of a magical train was interesting, and the movie was very dream-like in places. In fact, some parts bore a resemblance to some of my dreams, especially the urban landscape of Santa's North Pole metropolis. The Hobo on the carriage roof was unnerving in a Stephen Kingish kind of way, but apparently he was not malevolent as he rescues theOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1164592606467465662006-11-26T19:53:00.000-08:002009-08-13T20:53:12.488-07:00I very recently finished reading Mark Steyn's book "America Alone, The End of the World as We Know It".It was the most relentlessly depressing book I've read in a long time. But Steyn writes with such wit and sardonic humor, even with dealing with gloomy topics, that it was a very enjoyable book to read. I highly recommend it. Demand it from your local library so that others can enjoy it as well,Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1161459437124504702006-10-21T11:34:00.000-07:002010-01-03T06:50:01.578-08:00Thursday I went on my usual evening walk out towards the alfalfa field. It was deepening twilight, and the sky was still unstable from the hinder part of a frontal system that was moving across the area. As I walked westward, I could not help but be reminded of the dream I had some time ago. The sky looked very much the same, looking westward toward the horizon with the clouds tinted with Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1160443476918389182006-10-10T05:55:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:33:08.746-07:00Lately, I've been absorbing a few books, one by Mike Bickle, another by Graham Cooke, another co-authored by James W. and Michal Ann Goll; and I've gone back and re-read the two books written by Jack Deere, which I had bought and read a few years back. They've all been very helpful to me, albeit admitting to reading such will probably earn me the opprobrium of a certain segment of bloggers, the Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1158504718024723962006-09-20T19:20:00.000-07:002009-08-13T20:54:42.179-07:00In a recent lecture, Pope Benedict XVI quoted an obscure medieval text about a conversation between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologue and a "learned Persian" about Islam. The conversation, to paraphrase it, went something like this:Emperor Manuel asked, "Hey, why are you guys besieging my dear city Constantinople?" The learned muslim, taking another sip of his extra strong turkish coffeeOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1158286489278977502006-09-15T05:55:00.000-07:002010-01-03T06:54:03.563-08:00A few days ago I picked up from the public library a book by David C. Korten, entitled "The Great Turning, From Empire to Earth Community".I highly recommend Korten's book if you want to quaff down a heady draught of Dawning-of-the-Age-of-Aquarius political thinking, the kind that tends to grow up in the misty lands of the Puget Sound, that heavily gets discussed by blogliobibuli over steaming Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1157768107416237652006-09-08T18:44:00.000-07:002008-11-26T20:54:46.259-08:00Yesterday, we got back from a short vacation at Elkins Resort. It's a nice place, located on the western shore of Priest Lake at Reeder Bay, a little east of Nordman. We had nothing particularly fancy, just a plain one bedroom cabin. Off in the distance, we could see the ridge of the Selkirk Mountains, jutting up into the sky east of us.Priest Lake drains at its south end through the Priest RiverOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1157262455125470272006-09-02T22:31:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:30:26.792-07:00Today, Ms. Moonbones and I had an enjoyable time at the Farmers' Market, which is held on Saturdays not far from where we live, here in Land-In-Between, in a grove of tall ponderosa pine adjacent to a small industrial park. We bought some lemon cucumbers, and also some organically grown apples, about the most perfect looking apples I've ever seen, and very tasty too. There was some fellow with a Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1156042116065986082006-08-19T18:57:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:29:58.533-07:00Here is today's entry from my dream journal:I am walking westward down a street much like the one near my home. Looking west, toward the vast field where alfalfa is grown, I see a magnificent storm in the sky, like a vast thunderstorm with dark clouds filling the sky. It was a beautiful sight. I turned to look east and, behold, in the sky there was a storm so great, so dark, so awesome that I wasOengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1154908425594864522006-08-06T16:34:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:24:37.050-07:00Most people probably have seen judge Andrew P. Napolitano on the Foxnews network, where he is often called upon to be a judicial analyst. I am currently working through his book "The Constitution in Exile, How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land".It's an interesting book, and it is full of plenty of legal information regarding important case histories.Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1154298732932510202006-07-30T15:21:00.000-07:002009-01-13T18:12:15.879-08:00I've read through Vali Nasr's recent book entitled "The Shia Revival, How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future". It's full of interesting information regarding Islam and the religious divide between Shia and Sunni muslims. The one big drawback that I saw in the book was Nasr's tendency to soft-pedal the fascistic mullah oligarchy currently ruling Iran, and to gloss over the nastier Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1154227339270538862006-07-29T19:16:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:23:45.779-07:00While standing in line at Starbucks this morning—ordering my venti, triple shot, two pump, skinny mocha—I happened to notice the frontpage headline displayed on the newspaper on the rack by the counter. It read "Jewish Center Attacked".For a moment, I thought I was transported back in time to the 1930s, and I was seeing something that might had been in the papers often during those years. The Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1154054611057759772006-07-27T19:39:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:20:24.070-07:00Belief Net interviews the pungent Ann Coulter.When it comes to Ms. Coulter, I think it's always better just to read for yourself what she has to say, rather than accepting someone else's second-hand spin.Whenever I read the second-hand, blogospheric spin on Ms. Coulter, it usually amounts to something like "How about that Ann Coulter? Isn't she atrocious and shocking?" But when I go and actually Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1151886729515401612006-07-02T17:27:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:20:50.058-07:00By the way, I did recently finish reading Ann Coulter's book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism".This is my advice about Ann's book: don't bother listening to MSM spin about what Ms. Coulter did or did not say. Simply go buy the book and read it for yourself.Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871107.post-1149037334836707362006-05-30T17:40:00.000-07:002009-08-14T19:05:36.580-07:00The movie I was trying to think of was entitled "The Pride and The Passion", released back in 1957, which was almost half a century ago, a fact which makes me feel really old. Although they didn't exactly present some of their best performances, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, and Frank Sinatra starred in the movie, along with a cast of thousands. Of course, Sophia Loren was cast as the stereotypical Oengushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.com