Month: May 2019

The Poll Said ‘Do It’–So She Jumped

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

Malaysian police are investigating whether a 16-year-old girl committed suicide after her social media followers voted for her to do it (http://news.trust.org/item/20190515091101-3ss0p).

The girl jumped off a roof to kill herself–after, police say, she polled her Instagram followers and 69% of them voted “Death.” Instagram hastens to claim that actually 88% voted “Life”–but by then it was too late.

In Malaysia, “abetting suicide” is a capital offense.

Has social media become an idol, a false god? Go ahead, tell me that it hasn’t. This is peer pressure on steroids.

We please the true God by loving one another and keeping His commandments. He would never ask us to kill ourselves. But false gods always demand much more of us than the Father ever does.

Are we ready to change our ways yet? Or would we rather slide a bit further down this slope?

They Can Do… Everything

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

So we’re watching this TV show last night, Primeval, and these two paleontologists, guys who dig up and study fossils, suddenly grab a pair of motorbikes and dart all around the parking garage, chasing and being chased by raptors. They just know how to maneuver a motorbike at high speed among parked cars. In fact, they just know how to do wheelies. Both of them know these things. Instinctively. Up until that point in the series, we never saw hide nor hair of motorbikes. And now they’re doin’ wheelies. It’s very effective against raging dinosaurs.

How many times have we seen this in movies and TV shows? Some wispy little Barbie snatches up a .50-caliber machine gun and mows down the zombies. Joe Hero jumps into an unguarded helicopter and just takes off. Heavy machinery, high technology, advanced weapons systems–it’s all the same. Whatever special ability is suddenly called for in the script, the character in that scene has it. No one ever just doesn’t know what to do! “Old man Can’t is dead!”

Pity me. If I were being chased by Velociraptors, you could have 50 motorbikes parked in a row and I wouldn’t know how even to get one started, let alone zoom around like Steve McQueen, doin’ wheelies. First I would have to be taught. Then I’d have to practice. No time for that in a movie!

I consider this a literary crime, and pledge myself to try as hard as I can to avoid committing it in any of my novels. Your money back if I can’t do it!

 

‘Literary Crimes: Anachronisms’ (2016)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

Sorta like this King Tut cell phone…

Can a novel set in ancient times–antediluvian times, in fact–be ruined by having its characters frequently spout 21st-century Democrat cliches?

Uh… yeah. Even if it’s only me that thinks so.

Literary Crimes: Anachronisms

I keep saying “Christian fiction” has to be at least as good as, and preferably better than, ordinary secular fiction. But I read so much “Christian” stuff that isn’t, I’m beginning to think no one believes me.

Encore: ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I usually play this hymn around Christmas time, but really, it’s good for anytime–Gloria in Excelsis Deo by Saint-Saens, sung by the Libera boys’ choir. You can almost understand the Latin lyrics, if you just relax and listen.

Grumpy Cats

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

What makes these cats so cross? People, mostly. And one rabbit who’s really going out of his way to get smacked. Cats will only take so much guff before they let you have it.

It reminds me of my friend who wanted to show off by sticking his tongue out at his iguana. How disappointed he was, when the iguana nipped off the tip of it.

Cats don’t generally remove pieces of you when they get annoyed.

Bonus Hymn: ‘Hyfrydol’ in Welsh

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

A Welsh men’s choir, Bryn Terfel, sings Hyfrydol–in Welsh, so don’t ask me for the lyrics. It’s one of my very favorite hymns, and it uplifts me even though I don’t understand the words. The name of the melody, “Hyfrydol,” means “Delightful.” I think there’s a set of lyrics for every denomination, but the melody remains the same: delightful.

Why We Can’t Let Google and Facebook Quash Free Speech

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

Well, I did the Newswithviews column, and I’m tired–but first, here’s a little something you should read, if you’re concerned about social media giants stifling conservatives.

In a piece written for Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield offers a counter to the “But it’s a private company” argument that would let Google and Facebook continue to censor conservative opinion off the political landscape (https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273740/why-freedom-speech-should-apply-google-facebook-daniel-greenfield). But first a quote from his conclusion:

“A country in which freedom of speech effectively did not exist, even though it remained a technical right, would not be America. A government that allowed such a thing would have no right to exist.”

Sooner or later someone is going to remember that the Internet itself, and the social media, too, would not have come into existence without major developmental efforts funded by the American taxpayer–by you and me. Google and Facebook have taken their share of public money while claiming all the rights and privileges of private ownership. But in fact they are already, and have been all along, quasi-public agencies: and, as such, obligated to respect the First Amendment.

They mustn’t be allowed to restrict speech only to liberals, Democrats, and Far Left Crazy (you will overlook the tautology).

What the Left wants has no place in America.

How to Write My Column?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

I lost the whole morning to the eye doctor today, but I’ve still got to come up with a Newswithviews column for this week. Think, think, think!

I’d rather not write about the politics that everybody else is writing about: who needs me for that? So I go back over my blog posts for the past week or so, looking for a topic–usually looking for two or three topics that I can tie together.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

How about… how about… a nationwide epidemic of boredom? I ran a post on that last week. And from there I can segue into the ongoing efforts by people who should know better to get the whole country stoned on marijuana. It seems a natural tie-in.

And now it’s quarter to two, and I’d better get busy.

Why Do They Want Us Stoned?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

Vegetating in the doctor’s waiting room all morning, I got to see a lot of the New Jersey nooze on TV.

They are pushing cannabis, aka marijuana, pot, weed, as the answer to all life’s problems.

Background: A bill to legalize “recreational marijuana” failed in the state legislature earlier this year, despite our Far Left Crazy governor’s well-nigh frantic advocacy; and the feeling now is that they’ll never get it through the legislature. So Plan B is to put it up for referendum–with the idea that the people will always vote to get high.

Meanwhile, we are told on the nooze programs that cannabis “helps your workout” and even “helps your meditations.” Having known more pot-heads, and known them better, than I ever want to know again, I would be astounded to find one of them capable of any meditation on any subject. Or capable of much else, for that matter.

I begin to find it somewhat sinister, this ruling-class push for turning all us peasants into stoners. Why do they want us stoned? Why are they pushing “recreational drugs” at us?

Probably for the same reason they make our schools and colleges so lousy and then insist that everybody go there.

Liberalism is a war against the human brain. They don’t want us thinking. They don’t want us even able to think, should an opportunity present itself. Keep ’em stoned! Keep ’em stewed! They’ll never stand up to us, if they can’t stand up at all!

I have lived long enough to understand leftism as a satanic enterprise.

‘Coed Blows Her $90,000 College Fund’ (2015)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

They call it higher education.

When we say that too many recently “educated” persons haven’t got the foggiest idea how wealth is generated, we mean that literally. As in the following example:

Coed Blows Her $90,000 College Fund

Yes, Miss Millenial went and pissed away the whole $90,000 left to her by her grandmother–and then wondered what happened to it. She has ruled out working to pay for the remainder of her college.

I wonder what she majored in. No one has ever told us.