Saturday Matinee: Take Me Back to Oklahoma

Here's a film that takes no attention span to follow, suitable for the squirrelly, fidgety little boy in all of us. The plot is thin as a supermodel, a typical "save the poor beautiful widder woman's property from the evil cattle baron." Doesn't matter. With this cast and music, who needs a plot anyway?

Tex Ritter is the guy in the white hat here. His son is a lot more recognizable to anyone younger than 60, but you can sure see the resemblance in his face. Sidekick Slim Andrews is a kick indeed, carrying off some fun singing and otherwise reminding me of John Huston's old coot in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. His "Village Blacksmith" song is so enjoyable you don't even notice the haphazard lip-synching.

But the real show-stealer here are Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. I'm not sure why Tommy Duncan isn't singing in this one, but Leon McAuliffe was the vocalist for the band before Duncan, and he does just fine. This isn't their best time period for my money; I prefer the stuff from the 30s myself. But it's still fresh, and the contrivedness of the musical scenes just makes them more corny. And corny was Bob Wills' stock in trade.

So saddle up and become seven years old again:



Yee-haw!

God comes through in the crunch again

I spoke to the mortgage people today, and they're just fine with taking my tax refund when it comes in. Meanwhile, between my next paycheck, the donations we've received, and a chunk I found out I can take out of my 401(k), it looks like we'll even be able to avoid bankruptcy.

This is phenomenal. Three days ago we were sure we were going to lose everything and be unable to find a place to live. Now we'll be out of debt altogether by the end of the month, and without stiffing anybody. If the night job comes through (or I hear back on a couple of better-paid ones I've applied for), we'll be able to get ahead and once again sit under our vine and our fig tree. And none shall make us afraid.

I can't believe the responses we've gotten to the last couple of posts. The prayers, the donations... You people are incredible. I'm just plumb floored. I hope someday I can meet each of you in person and thank you for your help during this time. One of the best parts of being solvent will be having the opportunity to pay this forward when someone else gets in a jam.

God is generous. And His people are, too. Thank you all.

Oh, and...

... a couple of people have offered financial help as well, and one person e-mailed me and suggested I put up a PayPal button. I'm not very good at accepting help, let alone asking for it. I never want to be the sort of person who would take advantage of friends, especially ones we haven't even met in person. But I know if the roles were reversed, I probably would be graveled at stubborn pride interfering with my chance to help. I really need to relax my stiff neck and just be thankful.

So if anyone wants to, Christina has a tip jar button at her blog. Any help would be really appreciated. If you can't or just would rather not, that's fine too. We're not expecting anything. Just pray for us, and that should be plenty. For all my cynicism lately, God listens to prayers.

Explanation on the house thing

I didn't really have either the time or the composure to explain the circumstances that led to yesterday's post, but so many people have offered prayers, encouragement and even donations that I think I ought to fill in some background.

What started all this was that, about a year and a half ago, our income got chopped just about in half. (I'd best leave the specifics out, but the circumstances were completely beyond our control.) This left us trying to maintain a large family on just about two thirds of the federal poverty level. While we were trying to recover the money we had lost, we were stuck putting some of our living expenses on credit cards. This continued until a little after our crisis last summer, when I got a raise at work that should have covered at least enough of the difference to get by until we recovered the lost income.

Trouble was, even though we canceled our credit cards at that time, we were already so far in the hole that even a pay raise couldn't get us completely caught up. (I have to say here that we're not the sort of people who live high on credit. We didn't buy luxuries or take vacations on the plastic; we bought groceries and paid bills.) The fees and interest kept mounting, and the collectors kept calling, countless times a day.

Yesterday, we got a call from the mortgage company, a final warning that they were about to take action. (They had sent a foreclosure notice, but it disappeared as so much of our mail does, in the household chaos.) Unfortunately, we had just placated the last of the credit card bloodsuckers by promising them our tax refund. Ironically, if we hadn't done that, we would have been far enough in debt to qualify for one of those hardship programs the lenders are starting to offer. As it was, they discussed our income and our debts, and told us we had run out of options.

So what we'll probably do at this juncture is cancel the scheduled payments to the creditors and use the tax money for the house. I have to call on Monday and see if they'll let us do that; it's not due for another ten days and they'll have to hold off that long. Once we have the house safe, we'll grit our teeth and file Chapter Seven.

It'll mean stiffing the credit card companies, but you know what? To hell with them. We've already paid them far more than we actually got from them, and we're still not out from under. Other than that, we don't have a lot to lose. We drive old beater cars, our furniture is all Early Goodwill, and even our computers are either second-hand or homemade. Our credit is already in the sewer; this can't do any harm.

Meanwhile, it looks like a night job I applied for should come through any day. Right now they're just trying to schedule a pee test, and then they're desperate enough that I should be able to start right away. Between that and the bankruptcy, that should be enough to keep us above water.

The only "if" is the house. If the mortgage company will let us hold off, or if they'll accept a smaller payment on payday, we can keep it. If not, we have to come up with two or three thousand immediately, which we just plain can't do.(Another note: we didn't buy subprime like so many of those people who are getting foreclosures lately. We bought at a phenomenally good fixed interest rate, and bought as much house as we could afford, figuring that our income was only going to go up. Who'd'a thunk?) If we lose the house, I don't know what we'll do. There simply aren't any rentals with enough space for a family of eight (nine in the summer), and if there were, the rent would be far above our current house payment.

So we could really use prayers for the situation with the mortgage. That's what everything stands or falls on.

Seriously flagging faith

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

But if you look over this direction, you can see him lose his house.

It goes without saying that we could really use prayers.

Ash Wednesday: what better writers than me have to say

I've been pretty slammed today, so I haven't actually got much to write for Ash Wednesday myself. But there are a couple of blogfriends who have done a lot better than I could.

First, Nina, whom I'm finally going to add to the sidebar, reminds me of some of the reasons I became Catholic.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and I am off to confession this morning so I can start the season reconciled. I was thinking I would compose a note to the priest and roll it up like a cigar and shove it between the grating. Just to see if it would go over. Here's my note:

"Dear Monsignor, I did everything bad I could do except kill people. Calculate the maximum number of occurrances possible in a year. Impose maximum penalty. Gracias."
[...]
You go in wanting to tell all your stories and explain all your challenges because secretly or not so secretly, you want the priest to say, "There, there. You have had a hard time. Here's a cookie for you. Run along."

But that is not what it is about. The explanation doesn't matter. What you need to say and what he needs to hear is the flat, ordinary, ugly total of your failures. Not the why, but the what. And that, although it's very itchy and uncomfortable, is the also its great benefit. It divorces you from your string of excuses and forces you to see results. Even successes, if you have any, are often attributable not to virtue but some other cause.

Itchy and uncomfortable indeed. The confessional is sort of like a bath, but it's a too-hot bath with irritant cleansing chemicals. Nobody I know thinks the confessional is pleasant. It's good when it's finished, but it's embarrassing while it's going on. (Especially in this one-parish town, where I'm pretty sure the priest can recognize my voice even if he's trying not to.)

Pastor Mike at Adventure Faith hasn't been posting much lately, having had quite a lot going on, but what he put up the other day made me do a double-take.

Last month's issue of Psychology Today had an article about pastors who are becoming atheistic. In other words, there are more pastors out there who don't really believe in God anymore. Very interesting read which you can find here.
Yes, my own faith and theology waivers at times, even when I am teaching. But erasing God from the equation seems impossible to me. I can't imagine it. My issues of reconciling belief are just that... my issues. They have nothing to do with God.

That's it in a nutshell. My issues are my issues. God in His mercy may help me get past them, or He may leave me sitting in them, as He pleases. Either way, I've got a maximum of about fifty years before they get resolved for good. But meanwhile, they're not really God's problem.

With one exception. When it comes to sin, he's already made it His problem, at Calvary. That particular issue has already been decided. Everything else is just details.

Blobs of Tissue pretend to be people

But they're still not actual humans, with actual rights, or anything like that.

Appropriate for a child of the 80s

What military aircraft are you? B-52 Stratofortress You're a B-52. You are old and wise, and you absolutely love destruction. You believe in the principle of "peace through deterrence" and aren`t afraid to throw your weight around.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

A dip of the wings to Cassandra.

Tell it to the Marines

Apparently, what the Ber(ser)keley City Council wants to tell them is "Go away."

Members of the Berkeley City Council showed their opposition to a Marine Corps recruiting office in Downtown Berkeley last night.

Council members supported the two resolutions-one supporting anti-war protests and the other criticizing military recruitment practices-citing opposition to the war in Iraq, deceptive recruitment practices and the right to protest...

The other resolution more directly criticizes the presence of the center in Berkeley. The city manager was directed to send a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps saying they are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" in the city.

In addition, the city attorney has been directed to investigate whether the city's anti-discrimination laws can be enforced at the center, based on the military's consideration of sexual orientation in hiring...

The City Council's decision echoes mounting opposition to military recruitment in the Berkeley.

Local activists have proposed an initiative for the November 2008 elections that would require military recruiting centers to acquire a special use permit.

"The Marines ought to have better sense than to come here," [Councilmember Betty] Olds said.

Well, if the city really feels that way, let them run out the Marines. Whereupon, if we had a government with even the hint of a testicle, every nickel of federal money would be immediately cut off from any individual, business or government entity operating or residing within the city limits. Fair is fair, after all.

A/T to the wonderful Cassandra, who apparently snuck back into theblogosphere when I wasn't looking. Back in the sidebar she goes.

Update: Here's a story that shows Berkeley's contempt even more clearly.

Having failed in recent years to impeach President Bush and stop the war in Afghanistan, members of the City Council approved a resolution that encourages people to nonviolently “impede, passively or actively,” the work of the recruiters.

To that end, the council awarded the group, Code Pink, exclusive use of the parking spot for four hours one afternoon each week, for the next six months, to stage its protests. “If you’re going to join the Marines, you’re going to join the Marines,” said Zanna Joi, an activist with Code Pink, which favors cotton-candy-colored garb and in-your-face tactics. “But you don’t have to join the Marines from our town.”

In taking on the Marines, the council also directed the city attorney to investigate legal means of ousting the recruiting station, calling the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in this bastion of liberal politics, 1960s free speech and high-minded nonbinding resolutions.

Is there any legal way the city of Berkeley can be relieved of military protection, since they clearly don't want it?

Collaboration, huh?

Next time someone drags out that old canard about the Vatican collaborating with (or even directing) the Nazis in Germany, show them this article from 1937. It's not popular to say so now, but wherever the Germans invaded, the next people after Jews to be rounded up were the clergy. It's amazing the myths that have developed in 70 years. Any stigma will do to beat a dogma.

To market, to market, to buy a fatwa

If posting a cartoon of Muslim Arabs being defeated by a western pig isn't enough to bring down the wrath of the jihadists, I don't know what is. Especially since all my teddy bears already have names.



Insult those who behead for Islam!

Bless me, Father, for I have... huh?

This took me a couple of minutes to get.

Darn that Bush!

From the New York Times, a discussion of how the Bush years have blighted the lives of Americans:

Obviously, Sept. 11 and its aftermath have changed the country in countless and irretrievable ways. But even beyond the emergence of war and national security as pre-eminent concerns, there has been a profound reordering of domestic priorities, a darkening of the country’s mood and, in the eyes of many, a fraying of America’s very sense of itself.

A commenter at Villainous Company has his own sob story:

My tale of post 9/11 woe:

Things for me have gone from bad to worse. Sure, I have a 56" HD projection TV, but I couldn't afford the 1080p or the plasma. And what with global warming affecting our normally frigid winter temperatures, all of the time that I thought I'd spend watching it is wasted on outdoor pursuits I would never have considered just a few short years ago.

Bush's economy has simply ruined my job. I'm an IT guy, and all of these new-hires running around, incapable of remembering their damn passwords for more than a few minutes at a time or wanting their new PCs configured is driving me batty.

His disastrous tax cuts have just made things worse at home too. The huge bonuses that I've received for the last few years as the company's business has grown have caused fights of biblical proportions with the wife as we simply cannot agree on vacations to the beach or the mountains. Hey, maybe if this global warming thing keeps going, we won't have to decide: the mountains will have beaches!

And of course, we were silly enough to buy a home well within our means, so now we're paying an extra $1000/month against the fixed-rate 6% mortgage. This means we won't get any of the gov't candy being handed out to the idiots that didn't realize that 'variable' is not synonymous with 'ever-decreasing' or 'immutable,' so I have to live with feeling cheated out of that. Kinda pisses me off a bit, ya know?

And yeah, the soulless corporation I work for actually expects me to follow rules like show up for work, don't grope co-workers (God, how I miss the Clinton years when that was the cool thing to do), and put the lid down on the toilet. In exchange, all I get back is interesting work to do, 12 annual holidays, a 23 day PTO bank, a 6% match on my 401k, and a paycheck.

From where I'm sitting on this barstool crying in my beer, I sure miss the days when I had none of that, but at least I could make my own rules. You know, rules like 'Sleep until at least noon,' 'drink no less than a 12 pack a day,' and 'do not drive with a BAC of less than .15.'

I'm telling you, these are dark days indeed.

You know, the worst financial times I ever had were during the Clinton years. Bush's terms have been fairly prosperous (except for the last year or so, which has nothing to do with the government). A president doesn't really have that much control over the economy anyway; no individual does. The laws of supply and demand are as beyond man's reach as gravity. But if it's bad, it's Bush's doing somehow. And if the next president (probably a Dem) has economic woes during his administration, it'll be a holdover from Bush. Bet on it.

Looking on the bright side

Now that the weather has warmed up to six above here in the high desert, I saw this sign as I was dropping off my daughter at work.


Now I can get back to feeling sorry for the polar bears.

Friday Flick: Private Buckaroo

Now that the holidays are over (thanks be to God!), I think I'll continue the movie theme. Out of curiosity, does anyone actually watch any of these when I put them up? I know my tastes aren't everybody's, but there are some good films out there that have slipped into the public domain, and I do love sharing them along with armchair reviews.

Today's feature has kind of a double appeal. First off, it's a wonderful musical in and of itself. The plot is thin as dishwater, but that doesn't really matter. It's not meant to win any Oscars; it's a vehicle for some of the best music of the WWII era. The Andrews Sisters head up the bill, with some songs that will sound mighty familiar. As far as I can tell, this movie is where the song "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" originated, in a really surreal USO performance. There's some lovely performances by the legendary Harry James, including a running gag where some kid in boot camp tries to teach him to blow a bugle. In between, there's some cute comic bits from Shemp Howard (the oldest of the Stooges, and the most talented, for my money) playing off Mary Wickes. (Young 'uns will remember her as the crusty old nun in Sister Act.) The film runs just over an hour, most of which is devoted to the music.

The other side of this movie is a much more important one, to my mind. It's hard for us today to believe that there was ever a time when every move the government (and especially the military) wasn't subjected to immediate dissection and critique by any ignoramus who thought he knew better. Today's military actions are presumed to be war crimes until proven otherwise. Actors, journalists and other self-ordained intellectuals actually consider themselves morally superior to soldiers. Americans actually treat the sort of people who block troop supply trucks with their bodies as though they had a valid point of view that deserved to be heard.

But in 1942 things were very different. Private Buckaroo was released six months after Pearl Harbor, and the contrast just jumps out and smacks you between the eyes. Up until the December 7 attack, there were dissenting voices about whether we should or shouldn't get involved in a war. After the bombing, there weren't. Or if there were, they were silenced, not by government force, but by social disdain. (Yes, some government censorship came along with a declaration of war. But most of it was necessary only to keep military movements secret.) Conscription was used to man the armed services, but as a response to an overwhelming number of men all trying to enlist at once. My grandfather tried his damnedest (his word) to get in, but the Navy turned him down for bad eyesight, and the Army because he was missing his trigger finger. He resentfully had to settle for working in a shipyard. This was the norm, he told me, not the exception.

There were conscientious objectors at that time, too: Quakers, Mennonites, and other pacifists. So did they throw things at soldiers or deliver jeremiads in favor of the enemy? They did not. In Britain, they volunteered for Bomb Disposal, a specialty that carried an average life expectancy of two weeks. In the States, a group of 500 Quakers offered themselves to the War Department as human test subjects – guinea pigs. I could respect the current crop of peaceniks if they were willing to do the same. But they don't; they think they're contributing by sneering at their betters.

What plot there is in this film reflects that. The protagonist (Dick Foran) is a singer who has been trying to get into the Army, and keeps getting turned down. Harry James gets drafted, and he's happy about it. (His employer isn't, and gets called a heel for it.) A very young Donald O'Connor gives Foran a one-line lesson in placing duty ahead of pride. One of the Andrews sisters says "If I were a man, the Army is where I'd be." Their subtext all through the film is that men in uniform are the only ones a woman would be interested in. There's even an appalling segment where Foran sings about "the monkey men from Tokyo." The enemy is evil and sub-human, slackers are despicable, the American soldiers are the good guys, and the women are behind them one hundred and ten percent.

Propaganda? Of course. But it's propaganda that won the war. In 1942, an American victory was far from a foregone conclusion. We were trying to fight on two fronts, one of which was against an enemy who had never attacked us directly. (Sound familiar?) Had American industry not worked overtime (and stopped turning out civilian goods), had the Hollywood studios not bolstered morale so one-sidedly, had politicians – as they do today - competed to see who could interfere with the president more obnoxiously, it's entirely likely that America would have been beaten. I doubt that either the Japanese or the Germans had the wherewithal actually to invade and occupy the United States for the long term, but we certainly could have been beaten back to our own shores, and Germany in particular would have posed a serious threat after Europe was finished off. Propaganda went a long way toward unifying the country. Frankly, we're very, very fortunate that we haven't had to be involved in a war for our own survival since then. With our current cultural attitudes, we'd lose. Watching movies like this remind us that America doesn't have to be like it is now.

So here, for both your musical and your patriotic enjoyment, is Private Buckaroo:

This can't possibly be real

I keep waiting for a punch line, and it's not there.

An adventure park offers a journey back to the Soviet Union with KGB interrogation methods and "beatings" with a leather belt.

The 1984 Soviet Union theme park is located outside the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in an old bunker which served as a secret TV station in case of a nuclear attack.

Visitors to the park pay to be "beaten, interrogated and shouted at" by tour leaders dressed as agents of the Russian secret police, the KGB.

Story here, with video. A tip of the Akubra to Wicked Thoughts.

The Cervix Letters

Probably coming soon to a college campus near you.

You know, back in the 70s there was a fourth-rate smut flick that involved a woman whose voice box was, well, somewhat south of the usual location. I don't recall the name of the film. (And no, I never saw it; only read about it. That's quite enough for me.) But I can't hear about the V-Monologues without thinking of that. Murder Inc.'s new campaign looks to be stupid on the same kind of a scale.

Update: The campy film referenced above was called Chatterbox, and it involved a second larynx or something like that, rather than a dislocated one. I guess it wasn't meant to be smut, either, but really tacky comedy. Such are the vagaries of a twenty-odd-year-old memory.

Election or sitcom?

And is there a difference? You decide. Meanwhile, Dennis the Peasant has some sample theme songs to get it started.

And on the subject, it seems some fellow conservatives are disappointed with the current crop of candidates, especially now that Fearsome Fred has dropped out. Consequently, they've formed the "Get Offa My Lawn" Party, whose logo can be seen in the sidebar. I'll probably still vote for Romney in the primary, and GOP in the general, but I love the platform of the GOMLP.

You want to tax me for the bribes you’re offering people to vote for you? GET OFFA MY LAWN!

You want to impose limits on the kinds of food I eat, based on junk science? GET OFFA MY LAWN!

You want to drag the freest and most prosperous society in human history back to the Stone Age because some wacko claims we’re going to burn the planet to a crisp and drown those cuddly polar bears? GET OFFA MY LAWN!

I am curmudgeon, hear me snarl.

Heh heh!

Am I the only one juvenile enough to think it sounds a lot funnier when you say "Gay caucus" out loud?

And Washington has a big one. Snicker, snicker.

The collective vileness of the human race just diminished slightly

Kenneth Parnell, the pervert notorious for kidnapping Steven Stayner, has died of natural causes. Probably the only natural act the vermin ever committed in his life. The havoc he wreaked on so many lives just for the sake of slaking his revolting thirsts is still having a ripple effect. I've always thought it was horribly unfair that Parnell outlived Steven. I wonder sometimes what ever happened to little Timmy White. He'd be what, 33 now? (In fact, I have a pretty good idea where he is, through the miracle of the Internet. But he's best left alone.)

Unlike my buddy Ken, I can't actually wish for his damnation. That's forbidden for Christians. But on the slim chance that he died repentant and shriven, I still hope he ends up at the far end of Heaven from anyplace I might someday go.

We have a copy of the Mike Echols book about the Stayner kidnapping, and we've had several of our kids read it. The details it recounts are loathesome, but I recommend it for steering them away from strangers both physical and online.

Hallelujah!

Mei Day has arrived! Thanks to everyone that prayed (and more to those who donated), and especially to the God Who heard them all!

Blaming God

There's a Peanuts cartoon somewhere (I haven't been able to find it online) where Linus fills Lucy in on his latest theological discovery: If you hold your hands upside-down, you get the opposite of what you pray for. That's what jumped into my head when I first read this post from Nina. (Go read it; I'll wait. Sorry about the language. Finished? All right, let's continue.)

Nina didn't have to hold her hands upside-down; she got the opposite of what she was praying for anyway. Repeatedly. With no explanation and for no identifiable reason. And not in little things like finding a parking space: she was praying for things like her dad's recovery from leukemia. All that praying apparently just made things worse.

Now at this point, I can hear Christians saying things like, "Well, we can't know God's will. His ways are higher than ours. It is not for us to question the wisdom of the Almighty. Trust and obey... for there's no other way..."

To which I answer, "Horsecookies."

I'm going to indulge in a flashback here. 1997 was a year of sheer hell in my life. My printshop failed, after having never paid enough to live on in the first place. I had a miserable roller-coaster-like relationship with my ex, who had packed up our 2-month-old son and left me and my 9-year-old daughter the year before. We stocked our shelves at the food bank. I took dirt jobs to make enough to buy groceries, and my landlady (God bless her) actually let me slide on the rent for about six months while I looked for a job. By the time I got hired part-time at the Greatest Newspaper in the Northwest™ in May, I had no phone, no vehicle (the ex had taken it), and a little girl with some pretty heavy-duty emotional issues. I spent the rest of that year catching up bills while my meager check was being garnished by the state for back taxes, and trying to make up for everything my daughter had lost.

Now, I knew that some of the route I had taken to this point involved sin and plenty of it. I knew I wasn't innocent in all this. Because I was a Protestant at the time, a trip to a confessional wasn't really an option. When Protestants repent, they do it directly. And boy howdy, did I repent. A lot. I was sorry for all the things I had done wrong (no need to list them all), I desperately wanted to be on good terms with God, and I would do whatever He wanted me to do to show it.

Like it mattered. God apparently didn't give a rat's patoot if I repented or not. Things got worse in both my spiritual and my temporal life. The more I begged Him for any sign of His love, the more He piled on misery. It became a vicious cycle: God let me down; I ignored Him; He didn't come through; I ignored Him some more; things got worse and worse.

Things weren't quite so bad the next year. I spent New Year's 1999 with my new girlfriend's Christian family, and we went around the room talking about "what the Lord had done in our lives." When I said that I was grateful He had finally let up on me, I was answered with gentle chiding.

"Now, Joel, you mean He's blessed you richly this year. Tsk, tsk. That's what you meant to say, isn't it?"

No I didn't. I meant that God had taken a breather from bitch-slapping me. As hard as I tried to believe in an omnibenevolent God, all the available data indicated that He was in fact a callous bastard. He showered blessings on everyone else; I was the unwanted stepchild.

Now, in retrospect, I can see that I was being a petulant child, and that He had a plan for my life, and blah blah blah. I know He was right and I was wrong. But that's not the point. What I want to know is, why do we thank Him when things are good, but when they're not, we blame ourselves, or the world, or anything but Him? If He is sovereign and all-powerful (as I believe He is), then He is responsible for all of it. The good, the bad and the ugly. Whether He pats us on the head or kicks us in the teeth, it's His doing.

St. Teresa of Avila had it spot on: "Lord, if this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You haven't got very many."

That's why I don't think Nina's post is all that blasphemous. Sometimes, Jesus actually does smear peas in our faces. Sometimes, I'm certain He's laughing at me. Doesn't matter in the long run. I understand that He's perfect. I'll still follow and obey the best I can. I love Him and I'm grateful for the blessings He's given me. He saved me from hell, and anything else is beside the point on an eternal scale. It's up to Him to decide what treatment to give me, and I certainly haven't earned anything from Him. If He wants to make a shambles of my life tomorrow, that's His prerogative. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. But I don't have to like it while it's happening. And I don't blame Nina for not liking it, either.

Catching up

Okay, it's been quiet here long enough. I'm back to work, the baby is sleeping as much as a two-week-old can be expected to, and Christina is now able to extricate herself from a chair without using both a block-and-tackle and the vocabulary of a longshoreman. I reckon it's about time to blog again.

By now everybody's seen the picture of the new baby, Peter. In fact, I got comments from people I haven't talked to in a long time, including my cousin Kenny, whom I don't think I've seen in a decade. (Kenny, if you see this, I started to e-mail you back and my computer crashed. I'll try again in a bit.)

A note on the baby's name: "Peter" is in memory of three people: Christina's stepfather, who died shortly after we were married; my Uncle Pete, who for many years held the prize for most prolific and colorful swearing in Eastern Washington, and Christina's Uncle Piet, her grandmother's brother who came over from Holland. We toyed with spelling our Pete's name in the Dutch fashion, but decided it would make his life tough if and when he ever went to school. (Oddly enough, my Uncle Pete's actual name was John. Nobody in the family seems to know why he called himself Pete.) "Carroll" is Christina's dad's middle name. We also contemplated spelling that one "Karol," but decided against it. Christina's dad is important to her, and there are enough people honoring John Paul the Great that we didn't need to name a baby after him.

I occasionally hear from my daughter, who is in the early stages of rendering me an ancestor. Her baby is due in September. She's 19, which isn't really old enough from either my standpoint or hers, but she's the same age her mother was when she was born, so I guess she'll be all right. Either way, there's not a lot to be done except to love the baby when it arrives. Which I fully intend to do.

The night before Pete was born, I got a call from that same daughter that her grandmother had died. This is my mother-out-law, my ex-wife's mom. (Regular readers may have seen me post uncharitably about an ex in the past; this is a different ex.) Maryann was a wonderful mother, a wonderful mother-in-law (both while we were married and after), and the best grandma my daughter could have hoped for. The world is a lesser place without her. She wasn't all that old, either; only 63. When I was in the hospital with Christina and Pete, I kept remembering one thing about her: this was the person who taught me how to change diapers almost two decades ago. If nothing else, I'll always be grateful for that.

On a more pleasant note, while I was stuck at the hospital my Christmas present from Christina arrived. Back when I was in high school, I was learning Welsh in an evening class, and also singing with the Seattle Welsh Choir. (My singing voice tends to be reminiscent of a warthog passing a kidney stone, but then, I could pronounce the words where many of my choirmates couldn't. It evened out.) The classes were coordinated by David Morgan, who still runs an import shop that at that time specialized in Welsh items. In the church where the classes and choir practices were held, David had donated a stack of scratchy-but-serviceable records in Welsh. These I took home and listened to until I thought my record needle was going to wear out. On those records were a couple of songs by Edward H Dafis, the first rock band to record in the language of heaven. I was hooked. Some years later, I was able to get hold of a best-of collection of theirs on tape. But this... this is a collection of everything they ever recorded, six CDs worth, and has a booklet with all the lyrics to boot. (It's amazing how many I misheard. I comfort myself that their accent is very different from the one I learned in.) So I'm on cloud nine, soaking up the Welsh, much to the annoyance of anyone who rides in my truck with me.

(A piece of trivia: besides his importing business, David Morgan is also a master whipmaker. Remember the one Indiana Jones used? He made that, from kangaroo hide. Not bad, eh?)

I applied for a job last week that both pays better than the one I have and is something I'd really enjoy doing. I don't want to go into details, but I really want this one. I'd be grateful for prayers.

Finally, I just discovered this morning a blog steeped in Portland history. I'll always be a small-town boy at heart, but I lived in Portland for a number of years, and as cities go, it's a good one. I'm looking forward to going through the entries with a touch of nostalgia. It may even rate a spot in the sidebar.

That's all the news I can think of off the top of my head. I have a post percolating in my head, riffing off one that Nina put up a while ago. But that one's going to take a little time. Thanks for your patience, y'all!

Prayer request

Thanks, all, for your patience. As sleep deprivation becomes the norm, I'll resume blogging shortly. I have a lot of stuff I've been meaning to put up, so there'll probably be a flood in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, Dani at Life in 3D is asking for prayers for her nieces, who have been taken from their family by Child Protective Services. If you're not from the Northwest, you may think of CPS as a benign government agency. In Washington, they're not. These are the fine folks who brought you the Wenatchee trials, in the next county over. A visit from CPS in this state is like a knock in the night from the KGB.

I only know the people involved slightly, but Dani knows them well, and she wouldn't take their side reflexively. If she says the seizure is unjustified, it is. I also strongly suspect that the grandparents are suspect in CPS' eyes because they're Evangelical Christians. That was a major factor at Wenatchee, and I think it probably continues to be.

St. Helen of Skofde, friend of the falsely accused, pray for this couple, that their case may be heard by a fair and impartial judge, that the truth might be known and that the false witnesses may be refuted once and for all.

St Dagobert, protector of abducted children, pray for Dani's nieces, that they might be comforted and housed among Godly people. Pray for their safety from the predators who abuse the foster care system, and their protection from those who would turn them against their parents. Finally, St. Dagobert, pray for their swift return to their family.

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.

Lord, may these prayers from your people strengthen these parents, comfort the children, and bring the truth to light. We ask this in the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.

Cute little cuss, isn't he?

I don't know if other hospitals keep a website for new babies' pictures, but our local one does. Here's Peter's.

One other note: While Christina was in the hospital, I kept hearing a music box play Brahms' Lullaby, and I couldn't figure out what it was. Was it a baby gift someone kept playing, or one of those annoying musical cards? Nope. Turns out the hospital plays it through the intercom every time a baby is born.

A little bit of a break

From blogging, if not from anything else. Tomorrow at seven, my Lovely and Brilliant Wife and I are heading over to Samaritan Hospital (a whole three blocks away) for a scheduled Caesarian. So for obvious reasons, neither of us are likely to be in front of a computer for a while.

This one is a boy, his name is gong to be Peter Carroll Martin, and he is baby number eight. Just so we have all the specifics straight.

Prayers would be appreciated. Christina's a little nervous, as this one has had some minor complications (not least of which is that she's 40). We'll update as the opportunity arises. See y'all later!

Update: He was born at 9:57 this morning. 7 pounds 2, 19 inches, for those who collect stats. They're both doing fine, especially Christina, who's finding that morphine makes everything seem easier. :)

Pictures will follow when the opportunity arises.

A picture for the virtual fridge

Nina drew this lovely heptopodal giraffe, and nobody has said nice things about it at her place. My readers are a generous and appreciative lot, so please mention how much you like it.

Now hear this

In light of information I received last night, I expect hereafter to be treated with reverence befitting a grandfather. It is not, however, necessary to address me as "Gramps." Really, it isn't.

That is all.

Just enough of me, way too much of you

Ironically, this guy would probably describe himself as "pro-choice."

It's incredible that so few understand and are alarmed by the very high probability that humans will very soon be extinct if we don't greatly reduce the number of people depending on the planet's limited life-support systems.

The United Nations' conclusion that "only urgent global action will do" in dealing with climate change (Nov. 18) is sobering indeed. But since human activity is the primary cause, the solution is a right-in-our-face no-brainer: Reduce human activity! And do it now, with aggressive, mandatory, global birth control! That's clearly a quick, no-nonsense, low-cost solution.

Just as vaccinations are mandatory for the world's most dreaded diseases, we must now have mandatory worldwide birth control until humans, in excessive numbers, are no longer a threat to our planet's health. An analogy: When parasites infest an animal until it dies they simply find another host. Like blind fools, we're doing the same thing to our planet with overpopulation, which, like a biblical plague, is consuming and contaminating all of our life-support systems at an alarming rate...

Without question, large families must now be taboo. Of course there will be fierce opposition to mandatory birth control on several fronts of self-interest, the Vatican being one. But are we going to be serious about saving mankind? There's no time left for arguing.

The author is a 73-year-old retired teacher living in Tillamook. Which means he's old, past his productive years, and sullying with human presence an area of great natural beauty. And yet he adamantly refuses to remove himself from the earth, demanding instead that families like mine be eliminated. By force if necessary.

The jackassery is staggering.

Here's one for the ladies...

... the bloodthirsty little dears.

7-eleven clerk loses job, gains a ton of respect

He shot a robber, despite a company policy against it. I understand why the corporation would forbid things like this; their liability would be on an epic scale if a clerk got shot instead. I can't hold that against them. But with enough of this kind of people, eventually ordinary folks may start winning against these vermin. Criminals consider it positively unfair when you don't play your assigned role of cringing supplier of money and valuables. If productive people are ever to stop being perpetual cash cows for those that neither toil nor spin, a few more bullet holes in the right hides are a good place to start.

I'll bet the guy's phone is ringing off the hook with job offers.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

No! This is unfair! He's still got more books to write! Now we'll never know the skinny on Flashman's time in the War between the States, or Australia, or Mexico!

I knew it was a race against time, as he was getting on in years, but I was really hoping for a few more Flashman novels. I can't think of another author that's brought me so much enjoyment, unless it was Tolkien or Lewis.

Damn!

For my old friend Dave

And my brother Justin, and whatever other jarheads may read this, but especially for Dave. He's a recruiter for the Army National Guard now (after a fair amount of time in Baghdad), but he was a Marine in the last Gulf War, so he'll appreciate this answering machine message.

And he still has to call me so we can do lunch. It's been too long.

You might be Taliban if

You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer.

You own a $300 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes.

You have more wives than teeth.

You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.

You’ve ever opened a can of falafel with a mortar round.

You’ve ever had your camel repossessed.

You can’t think of anyone you HAVEN’T declared Jihad against.

You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry ammunition in your robe.

You’ ve ever been asked, “Does this burka make my butt look too big?”

You’ve felt the urge to “rub her out” after seeing a woman’s exposed ankle.

You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.

You’ve ever uttered the phrase, “I love what you’ve done with your cave.”

You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon “unclean”.

A tip of the Akubra to Father Joe.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away

On the night when we celebrate His greatest gift to us, Mike had his dad taken from him. He's had a rough time of it, and it sounds like he was well ready to go home, but it's still hard to lose your dad. At least now he's got a body that works as it should, and he gets to be with family he hasn't seen in a long time, as well in the presence of the Lord Himself.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

And Mike, we're praying for you.

Scrooge (1935)

I mentioned with an earlier movie that films like "It's a Wonderful Life" are so much a part of our cultural Christmas experience that it's hard to believe they ever weren't. "A Christmas Carol" goes even farther; it's almost as much a part of our cultural holiday canon as Santa Claus. The trinity of past, present and future, the theme of sin and redemption, the contrast between material and spiritual benefit... it all is soaked into our subconscious that it's hard to imagine a Christmas without some reference to it.

A quick run-down on IMDb shows 53 different versions on film, and I'm sure there are more. I remember seeing Henry Winkler do a good retelling of it in the 70s, and Bill Murray deserves a medal for "Scrooged". ("Staple the antlers on!") The 1935 Scrooge, though, is probably the best I've seen so far. It's a straightforward rendition, without comical characters and the winking inside jokes that you have to put in today because the story line is so familiar. It also doesn't get into Scrooge's childhood in an attempt to explain his loathesomeness. He's just a rotten person, that's all, without any excuse.

But the theme of repentance and change is stronger here because of that. There's no cute Tiny Tim at the end, saying "God bless us, every one," but Scrooge's change of heart is a complete 180. It sticks to the book about the way I remember reading it. The acting is a little heavy-handed, probably because the actors were stage-trained and talkies were still kind of new. But the intensity is unmatched.

This is far and away the best Christmas movie I'll be posting here. Do yourself a favor and see it. It's a straight-up, 200-proof Christmas Carol, the way Dickens would have wanted it done.

Are these really genes I want to share?

Actually, probably. My Reverend Auntie shared a story about my cousin, her Favorite Son (hereinafter referred to as "FS"). I haven't seen him in years, but this sounds like the Mike I remember:

I have a picture taped up on my wall of the FS and me, taken years ago when we were both much younger, for our church directory. He is long-haired and bespectacled, wearing a tattered jean jacket, a tie, and a black t-shirt with a slightly offensive slogan, his baseball cap on backwards, a maniacal grin on his face. I am long-haired myself, in a red dress, much thinner, beaming innocently, unaware of how this picture will turn out. As it was, we chose it for our directory picture because it was so much a depiction of who we were in those days. He must have been about 19 at the time and I was probably only 50 or so.

He was the ringleader of the youth group at our church and at the time, the church was in the middle of an all-church social action project which involved everyone in helping with a local agency for families in transition. The youth group was in charge of a drive to amass paper products for the agency.

One Sunday we were complacently listening to the announcements at the beginning of the service, when the rear doors swung open and through them marched a phalanx of black-clad young men, the FS at the point position. They reached the front of the church, swung around, legs planted wide, hands on hips. The FS, in his black leather trench coat, opened one side of his coat to reveal many paper products fastened inside.

"We need you to bring paper towels, disposable diapers, kleenex," he opened the other side of his coat; "also toilet paper, computer paper, all kinds of paper products for Family Tree". He closed his coat, put hands on hips, glared menacingly. "And ya better do it. Cuz if you don't.........I'm gonna date all your daughters!"

The paper drive was a great success.

I love the smell of political ads in the morning

H/T to Pastor Jeff.

A step in faith for a good cause

Wunderkraut and Frau Wunder are in the process of adopting a seriously adorable little girl from China, and they can use some help.

Our paper work was officially logged into the Chinese government on December 12 of that year. We expected to wait 9 to 10 months until we received our referral, but a month later the entire adoption system in China came to a dead stop due to internal government politics.

Our short wait grew to almost two years, but we are happy to announce that on December 5, 2007, we were notified that we had our referral and the very next day we saw our daughter for the first time. Feng Yun Man (soon to be Mei Elyse Talley) was born on March 18, 2007 and is currently in Fengxin Orphanage in the Jiangxi Provence, not far from Nanchang, China. (Try Google Earth) We expect to be traveling to China by mid January to bring Mei home to her new family.

The cost of foreign adoption is very high. When we started this whole process we did not have a single dollar, but we prayed and knew that the Lord would provide. And provide He did! In a very short time, the Lord blessed me with side work and the work just kept coming. It meant long nights and weekends, but it was worth the sacrifice.

We went from having no funds to having enough money to pay for the entire adoption plus some money towards the airfare. However, the two year delay caused us to have to resubmit parts of our paper work and that depleted the travel money.

Depending on the amount of advance notice, the total cost of the tickets will be between $2,000 and $4,000. We are asking you to prayerfully consider donating towards the cost of the airfare to China. We are also asking that you keep our family in your prayers, especially baby Mei.

Take a look at that little girl. Really, we want her in this country to help raise the average cuteness of American children. The need for money is a serious one, though, so if you can, please try and help them out. They've got a PayPal button up, as well as an address. I doubt if we'll be able to send any money ourselves, but we'll see what can be done.

If you can't give anything, at least pray hard. We'll certainly be doing that. If the Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills, He (and His people) can pony up for a couple of plane tickets.

Waiting for the lawsuit

This sort of thing must be silenced. Before you know it, we'll be overwhelmed by dangerous attitudes like peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

Someone is trying to spread a little Christmas cheer along New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.

The AP reports that just after Thanksgiving, two large glass ornaments mysteriously appeared on two large pine trees alongside the Parkway in New Jersey's Pinelands. Since then, five more decorations have popped up in the same house-free area.

Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs lawyers of Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Mrs. Calabash

I haven't actually seen The Great Rupert, but in the course of posting it I decided I have to as soon as I can get a little free time. It sure looks like a cute one. Certainly it can't be too bad, if it stars The Schnozzola.

Let me know what you think if you see even part of this!

Bless me, your honor...

Shouldn't it work the other way around?

A judge in southern Chile has sentenced a Catholic priest to recite psalms daily during three months as punishment for a traffic violation.

Judge Manuel Perez said he issued the unusual sentence after Father Jose Cornejo said he could not afford the 50,000-peso ($100) fine that would have been the regular sanction for illegal parking in the city of Puerto Montt.

"He will have to recite seven psalms from a book in the Old Testament," Judge Perez told the Santiago daily La Tercera.

He added, "This is not a sentence that just occurred to me."

Bummer

The Seattle Center Fun Forest will be closing.

I don't have a lot of positive memories of Seattle. I lived in the area through most of my teenage years, and I wasn't really very happy there. I was - and am - a small-town boy at heart, and I wanted more than anything to go back to Goldendale. But one of the things I didenjoy was taking the Metroid bus downtown and hanging out at the Pike Place Market and the Seattle Center. Even when I didn't have any pocket money (which was most of the time) I would take a book and sit and enjoy the atmosphere. Once in a while my folks would take us all to the Center, and buy ride tickets at the Fun Forest. (I didn't ride them myself; I can't even cope with a carousel for more than one ride.) It may not be my favorite part of the place, but it's an institution. Heck, my mom and dad were there at the World's Fair in '62, when it first opened.

As long as they're dismantling the Seattle Center, I have a suggestion for what they can do with the Space Noodle. It's long overdue, after all.

Romney Roundup

I know Mormons are kind of exotic critters to the east-coast media, but the sheer amount of bigotry that's getting published is really cheesing me off. Anti-Catholicism is sometimes called "the last acceptable prejudice," but that vitriol is minor compared to what passes for journalism when Mormons are involved.

First, the good.
You mean he's got a life outside of funny underwear and baptizing dead people? Who knew? One discouraging note is that if the WaPo is writing positively about a Republican, it means they think he hasn't got a chance. Still, at least it means one reporter has his head somewhere outside his lower digestive tract.

The bad.
Romney's a racist-cracker-ofay! So there!
A few of the more egregious quotes:

Whenever a proselytizing Mormon knocks on my Harlem door, I chase him away as brusquely as I would chase away a Klansman, or an evangelical Christian Republican, and for much the same reason.

I have zero tolerance for racial intolerance.

And I have zero tolerance for smarmy blockheads. Can't you just smell the crosses burning? (Actually, Mormons don't use crosses; maybe they'll have to burn spires or something.) I'd be interested to know if he's ever actually seen a Mormon ward's ethnic makeup. The LDS church is loaded with Hispanics, Asians and Pacific Islanders. Probably a third of the church is non-white. Can his own church in Harlem (assuming he attends one) boast the same kind of diversity? I doubt you'd see a whole lot of white faces there. But that's different. Those aren't racially intolerant churches.

What exactly is the shelf life of God-inspired bigotry? Mitt Romney grew into adulthood under a Mormon doctrine instructing members that Negroes could not enter heaven or the priesthood because they were cursed by God, and inferior. Laying aside the Mormon hocus-pocus, Romney is no different in such racial conditioning than his comparable, evangelical white Christian, to say nothing of the secular crowd.

"Grew to adulthood?" Yes. He was 30 years old when the church declared that the priesthood was now open to black men. (Heaven was never closed to them to begin with, but the calumny sounds better that way, so let's just leave that in. Who'll ever know?) Is the charge that he could have changed the teaching, and didn't? How much influence does he think the average young man has over a church of millions? Or is Payne saying Romney should have left the church in order to pursue a more color-blind way to heaven? If so, it says something about Romney's loyalty and Payne's, respectively. Romney sticks to the church he's committed to, even if some of its tenets aren't to his liking. Payne seems to think it's better to switch gods according to who suits him best.

From there, Payne descends into some kind of incoherency about disparate drug law enforcement. Which is clearly instigated by the secret Mormon cabal controlling America's judicial system. Which is managed by... white men! That proves it! Romney's a racist!

And the ugly:
I don't think the bozo at Newsday really meant to suggest some shadowy Mormon Illuminati skulking about in preparation for the day when they rise up and subjugate America under their dread regime of decaf pop and green Jello. Elva Anderson knows it's coming, and wants to warn us all. She knows all about it, because she consulted Sandra Tanner, who is to the Mormons what Jack Chick is to the Catholics. Here's what Mrs. Anderson has to say:

Frankly, I don’t think I can count on Mr. Romney’s prayers to his god who is busy birthing spiritual babies on another planet — not while bin Laden is also busy birthing babies on our planet (12 to 24 physical children, according to Wikipedia) and countless spiritual progeny, all of whom hate us.

So, money or not, I’m going to have to say “no” to Mitt Romney. I’d rather count on the prayers of someone like Mike Huckabee; he prays to the same God the pilgrims prayed to. Money might move some conservative leaders, but it won’t move the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when the Philistines, Assyrians and Babylonians come after us with their nuclear warheads.

If Romney is elected to the presidency, God will turn His face away from America, and darkness will reign upon the earth. Because the real role of a president is to pray for the country, not to manage it.

Update later in the day: It just occurred to me that holding Romney responsible for the sort of lurid rumors Mrs. Anderson and Mr. Payne are spouting is equivalent to expecting Guiliani to justify his adherence to the faith of Maria Monk and Alberto Rivera. It's not even his religion they're finding him guilty by association with; it's a caricature.

How to get away with sexual harassment

Glenn Sacks thinks this SNL sketch is an illustration of how subjective sexual harassment standards are; i.e., if she doesn't like it, it's harassment. Maybe so, but I'm not trying to make a statement here. I just think it's a hoot.


(My apologies to anyone in the mammarily-unchallenged community who took offense at the word "hoot.")

Your Friday Christmas Movie

I figure it's about time to put up another film, since Christmas is bearing down on us like a logging truck.

This one is only a Christmas movie by way of setting; the actual plot is only peripherally related. Then again, some of the films we most associate with the holidays are like that. "It's a Wonderful Life" is an obvious one; it's so firmly established in the American Christmas canon that we can't imagine it with a summertime setting. Every year, we see a romantic comedy or two that are set at Christmas just because that's a lucrative time for the release. I'm partial to 'While You Were Sleeping" as an example of that genre.

The theme that ties these together is a sense of hearth and home, an emphasis on families and togetherness. Real families, of course, get on each other's nerves during the holidays, but that, too, is taken for part of the fun. In Christmas movies, family is paramount. The holiday-family-schmaltz dynamic also makes for an ideal way to make a sentimental movie not come across hokey, especially with one like today's film du jour. There's also kind of a built-in deadline that establishes the film's timing, as the characters want everything to be perfect for Christmas.

Although "Son of the Navy" sounds like the sort of thing you call a man when you want to provoke him into a tavern brawl, it's actually a benign, even pollyanna film. The plot is a familiar one: a little orphan boy tries to wangle himself a family for Christmas, even if he has to create it himself. It's also got the familiar comic elements of mistaken identity, a bickering couple that you know will end up in love, and a cute dog. I don't know why this little boy didn't keep acting as an adult; his last credit seems to be a Dragnet episode when he was about 20. IMDb doesn't have any other biographical information and I can't find any Social Security death record for him, so he's probably alive out there somewhere at the venerable age of 80. (Martin Spellman, if you ever find yourself here on a Google search or something, drop a comment and tell us about yourself, would you?) Besides him, James Dunn and Jean Parker (who immediately afterward was the charming leading lady in the last film I posted) turn in a delightful performance as the sort of people who shouldn't be allowed in the same room together. It's a cute, light B movie, all in all; not pretentious, just sweet.

This film has one more poignant note that the makers couldn't have predicted. It was released in 1940, as the Depression was winding down and it looked as though everything would be all right at last. By the following Christmas, the whole world would have changed, and the Navy would be reeling from the attack at Pearl Harbor. (That was 66 years ago today, in fact.) But for that short time, we get to see a military man and his makeshift family with no bigger problems on their plate than their personal lives. Which is how it should be.

So pull up a chair, pour yourself a warm cup of something, put on your toasty socks, and enjoy:



(Leave a comment if you see this, and tell me what you thought.)

Update: I removed the Tourette's Syndrome Barbie because the sound was interfering. If anyone wants to see it, it's not hard to put back. I think it's pretty much run its course, though, as far as novelty.

No hurry. Finish your coffee break.

I think if I were a Lewis County Sheriff's deputy, I'd have a second cup and maybe even a doughnut before setting out on this rescue. When your county looks like this, you've got bigger things to worry about than these cretins.

If Tetzel had had the Internet

This makes selling indulgences look like small potatoes. And I'll bet they've never had to give a refund to a dissatisfied customer.

Shirley MacLaine honored for 'Lifetime Achievement'

Question is, which lifetime?

(Somebody had to say it.)

This is my life!

What we say and what they hear:

What I said:
Kiddo#1! Breakfast!
What Kiddo#1 heard:
We’ve been up for half an hour and have been busy setting the table. I asked what you wanted to eat. The coffee maker beeped and the toaster popped. Everyone is gathered in the kitchen but you, and we called you for breakfast, but it’s actually a clever trick to fool you. You can defeat our nefarious purpose by sitting on the couch continuing to read, and we’ll be powerless to defend against you!

What I said:
If you want a stuffed animal, go in your room and get it.
What Kiddo#3 heard:
I will never let you have a stuffed animal again in your life.

Go read the whole thing. This rates her a spot in my sidebar for sure.

A man who never jumped the shark

It looks like hepatitis and pulmonary fibrosis have done what gravity, fire and the Snake River canyon couldn't. Evel Knievel is dead at 69.

What y'all may not know is that Robert Craig Knievel got his start right here in Moses Lake in 1965, trying to jump over a box of rattlers. He missed that time, but I've talked with people who remember seeing him do practice jumps over a narrow spot in the lake, just down the road from my office.

He fueled a million boys' stupidity in the 70s, with his jumps and stunts. Boys will do dumb, dangerous things anyway, but he gave us a role model. We used to pretend to be him when we jumped our bikes and hurled ourselves off roofs and things like that, imagining ourselves going through flaming hoops in a gaudy star-spangled suit. Rumor had it that one pinky was the only bone he'd never broken. Nobody, but nobody, was cooler than Evel Knievel. Even the Fonz was only a pale imitation.

I'm really glad it was natural causes that got him in the end, and not a crash. He may be dead, but by gum, he went out undefeated.

Update: I just ran across this (completely at random, in fact), and it seems like a fitting way to remember Evel.

Today I am a geezer.

That's right. Four decades ago, I came into this world, the only one out of something like ten pregnancies that survived to birth. And vile little whelp that I was, I can't believe I survived to adulthood. (Every year, at 12:29 pm, I apologize to my mom.) My oldest child is now the same age her mother was when she had her, and only a little younger than I was. At that time, I honestly never gave a thought to being 40. Heck, I figured I was taking the long view by acknowledging that one day I'd turn 30. (Coincidentally, I spent my thirtieth birthday about fifteen feet away from where I am now. Same office, different workstation.)

I can't complain; my Lovely and Brilliant Wife is both 40 and pregnant, which I can't top. But I can sit and ponder my misspent youth, and listen to my birthday song.

Anyone who wants to can see a baby picture over at It Comes in Pints (scroll down to number four).

And something for Ricki

Apparently there are people translating the Bible into LOLCat. I don't know whether to laugh, cry or watch out for lightening, but I know Ricki will find it amusing. With Advent upon us, Luke 2 seems a good place to check out the desecration:

Oh hai, Jesus iz bornd
1 'Roun dis tiyem, Caesar Augustus wuz like, "I can has cenzus?"
2 ('Coz while Quirinius was Teh Boz of Syria, is invisible census!)
3 And all teh doodz went home for teh saying, "I is heer!"
4 So Joseph went from Naz'reth to Judeeah to Bethlehemm whar David wuz bornededed, 'coz David wuz hiz graete-graete gran-daddie,
5 An Mary went wif him, 'coz she was gonna be married an she was preggerz.
6 When wuz time for teh baybee,
7 it wuz a boy, so he wuz wrapd in blanket like burrito an placd him in fud dish, cuz innkeeper wuz liek, no room here kthxbye!

Sheep-doodz n Angels
8 Then there wuz sheep-doods in teh field, an they wuz watchin teh sheep in teh dark. Iz vry vry boring. srsly.
9 An suddenly, visible angel! An glory! O noez!!
10 But teh angel sed, "is ok, you can has gud news for all teh doodz!
11 Todai in da city ov David, you can has sayvur! is Christ da Lord! w00t!
12 Is sign fer u, find da baybee wrapd like brrito in a big fud dish."
13 An suddenly, moar angelz! They sez, 14 "w00t to teh Ceiling Cat! An peace fer doodz he luffs! Kthxbai."
15 An when da angelz go invisible again, sheep-doodz sed, "sweet, nao we find teh brrito-baybee sayvur!"
16 So dey left da sheeps (sheeps r vry borng) and found Joe an Mary and da baybee in da fud dish.
17 An when dey saw it wuz baybee an not brrito, they told evrywun he wuz kewl,
18 An all teh doodz who herd were lyke, "neat-o brrito!"
19 An Mary wuz lyke, "o rly?"
20 Teh sheep-doodz sed, "Yay fer Ceiling Cat! Was not invisible brrito!"
21 On dai noomber ate, it wuz tiem 2 circumcize him (iz laik getting fixd) an they called him Jesus, 'coz teh angel sed it wuz a kewl name.

Somewhere, Linus must be shuddering.

A hymn for Kymn Kim

I went looking last week for the words to the hymn tune Hiraeth, as I thought Kim at the blog of the same name would be interested. I couldn't find it online anywhere, so I scanned a copy out of my gymanfa hymnal. It's not William Williams Pantycelyn's best, not by a long shot, but the tune by Protheroe certainly evokes its namesake emotion. (Ironically, I don't think Williams ever left Wales at all.)

Here it is, Kim. Enjoy!

Saving the planet, one death at a time

I've been having trouble coming up with an adequate response to this bit of eco-stupidity, which the worthy 'Fly brought to my attention. Fortunately, Lileks is able to express at least one aspect of my revulsion with it:

Disaster! She had the awful thing put away, and now she and her husband enjoy hiking and vacations . . . in other countries, accessed via jets. But: “We feel we can have one long-haul flight a year, as we are vegan and childless.” She expresses frustration that other people are unable to accept her decision. I suspect she means “my mum” by “other people,” and I suspect she confuses “acceptance” with “full-throated endorsement."

Of course I accept these people’s decisions not to have children. What am I supposed to do, break into their homes, duct-tape them together into the double-backed beast and play whacka-chicka 70s porn soundtracks until they’re in the mood? But “acceptance” is part of the usual recipe: first we must tolerate, which no decent person should have any problem doing. Then we are asked to accept, which for most means slump-shouldered acquiescence. Eventually it’s not the norm, but it’s standing alongside it on stage, nudging its way into the spotlight.

Be it understood, I don't care if this woman sterilizes herself. Heck, from a Planned-Parenthood-eugenics perspective, it might be for the best. What I have a problem with is the idea that abortion is the way to "save the planet."

If the trend catches on, eventually the commandment will be "Thou shalt not suffer a child to live." Instead of merely being a cynical cash cow for eugenicists, the Sacrament of Abortion might grow to be treated as exactly that. Currently, it's only treated as an unqualified good by the most loathesome uterofascists, while politicians who might otherwise disapprove of it still bow at its altar to keep the votes coming. But if the Global Warming Cult gets a strong foothold, mandatory (or at least socially-demanded) abortion will follow behind. Realistically, I don't expect anything that drastic, but it's a direction I don't want to see our culture even begin to lean toward.

The other concern is a little more behind-the-scenes - the idea that it should always be somebody else, somebody worthless, who has to be sacrificed for the common good. It's always couched in the highest of motives - in this case, the pursuit of a healthy environment - but the bottom line is twofold: (a) it's going to take some suffering, and (b) it's not going to be me that does it. Logically, the most effective means of lessening her "carbon footprint" would be for Toni to off herself. But that never crosses her mind. After all, what good is a healthy environment if I'm not there to enjoy it? Me, me, me.

So it can't be Toni or her sisters-in-folly who make that ultimate sacrifice. And it can't be her husband (or boyfriend or whatever); walking and hiking and going away for weekends aren't any fun alone. Still, somebody has to be eliminated, or carbon will batter the ecosystem with footprints like kids playing on the best sledding hill in town. Logically, it has to be the person who is of no use to her, either financially or socially or emotionally. Coincidentally, that's also the only person she can get rid of without legal repercussions; the law frowns on murdering strangers, but subsidizes this kind of eugenics. It enables her to feel like she's doing the earth some good (infinitesimal in fact, but impressive to the ego) without actually compromising her lifestyle. This is the kind of thinking that motivated the ancients to sacrifice their children to vengeful deities, that caused Germans to look away when their Jewish neighbors disappeared, that allows soi-disant men to slink away and abandon fourteen women to their deaths. It's cowardice and selfishness, combined with a smug self-righteous conviction that turns contemptible behavior into a badge of superiority. I can muster more respect for an Islamofascist suicide bomber than for a woman who kills the helpless to keep her lifestyle uncluttered, then has the nauseating gall to expect praise for her actions.

Personally, I'd exchange Toni in a heartbeat for the baby she had killed. At least that was an unknown quantity. With Toni, we know what sort of people we're dealing with, and it's not encouraging for the future.

I could pass for well-traveled

You Know Your States

You got 10/10 correct. You've got a pretty good handle on US geography. There's a good chance you've visited at least a dozen of the fifty states.

How Well Do You Know Your States?

Actually, I've been to six as an adult, plus a couple of others when I was too young to remember it. But it wasn't a particularly difficult quiz for anyone passing familiar with the map of the US. A tip of the (Australian) hat to Cullen.

Of course there's no connection...

... between this and this. At least you wouldn't know it from the latter account. Pure coincidence.

So there, Serbs!

This makes "José can you see" sound pretty lame:

Football fan websites in Croatia want a medal for the British singer whose X-rated rendition of the country's national anthem apparently helped the team to beat England.

Opera singer Tony Henry mis-pronounced a key line in the national anthem before Wednesday's match and sang "my penis is a mountain" to the delight of the Croat players.

The anthem is written in the old Croat style. Instead of singing "Mila kuda si planina", which translates "You know my dear how we love your mountains", he sang "Mila kura si planina" - "My dear, my penis is a mountain".

Croatian players Vedran Corluka and Luka Modric were seen grinning at each other when they heard the mistake, and fans said it relaxed the team and helped them to their 3-2 victory.

Apparently, even the Croats say that's a pretty easy mistake to make. And unlike Roseanne, he didn't mangle it on purpose. In fact, it could even be taken as patriotic bragging. If you're a Croat, that is.

Bad Dawgs!

In your face, pooches!

Beyond Tomorrow (1940)

This seems as good a time as any to put up another Christmas movie, now that I've gotten the hang of it and all. I won't be watching any movies this weekend, as tomorrow is the Apple Cup game (Go Cougs!) and the rest of the time will probably be spent setting up for Christmas. But for those who have some time this weekend, I've got a little gem.

Beyond Tomorrow is the sort of movie you simply don't see anymore. Three elderly bachelors who both live and do business together set up a little test to see what kind of people are walking outside their window. They each toss a wallet with ten dollars and a business card inside, and wait to see who returns the money. Naturally, it's a man and a woman, both single and lonely, and both at loose ends for the holiday. The bachelors invite them to Christmas dinner, and the result is what you'd expect, either in 1940 or today.

It all takes a different turn when (a) the three men are killed in a plane crash and (b) the young man finds himself being led astray by a woman of easy virtue. From here on out, it's chock-full of the sort of thing that Hollywood would roll its collective eyes at today, even for a hokey Christmas flick.

For starters, the theology is a bit clear-cut for a modern film, even though for people who take their religion seriously it's kind of facile. The afterlife is presented without self-consciousness or wisecracks. Good is good, and evil is evil, and there is forgiveness for the repentant. It's a morality tale, pure and simple. If you don't like moral absolutes, you won't get this one.

Besides that, the acting is really good for such a low-budgeter, and there's a nifty little background/subplot thing with two Russian servants, refugees with Romanov connections. Maria Ouspenskaya is the sort of treasure that belonged in a museum; to see her in this B-flick is like seeing Olivier in a soap commercial. So get the hankies out and skip the cliche repellant:



Leave your thoughts in the comments!

A darn shame

I don't care where you stand on illegal immigration, this guy is exactly the sort of citizen we want in this country. I hope someone at the State Department sees this story and works out some arrangement to keep him here.

Here's cause to give thanks

Toddler falls out of a third-story window and isn't hurt. I could so easily see one of mine doing this. It makes my stomach hurt just to think about it, even knowing the boy is all right.

Wish I'd seen this yesterday

Hope everyone had a gluttonous holiday!