Month: July 2021

Are You Named ‘Rumpelstiltskin’?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Rumpelstiltskin - Fairy Tales - Research and Course Guides at Missouri Southern State University

[Note: I’m not feeling well today, my wife feels worse than I do, and my editor feels worse than she does. Nevertheless, we’ll try to maintain business as usual.]

Imagine writing a business letter and having to start it, “Dear Mr. Rumpelstiltskin.”

Imagine hearing a court case, The People vs. Rumpelstiltskin.

Imagine anyone named Rumpelstiltskin running for Congress.

You get the point. The name has no business outside a fairy tale. But look at my name, which winds up on book covers. It is pronounced a dozen different ways, none of them right. Dye-gon. Dooo-gin. Doo-jion. Du-gong (a marine mammal related to the manatee). At least most people can say “Rumpelstiltskin.”

I asked “Answers.com” if there’s anybody really named Rumpelstiltskin. The tantalizing answer was “At least one.” Hmm… That’s all there was to it. It raises more questions than it answers.

Rumpelstiltskin for U.S. Senate. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

‘Climbit Change Been Very, Very Good to Him!’ (2017)

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Obama home

Amazing, what you can get with a public servant’s salary!

I just remembered that the root of the Enron scandal was a plan to cash in on what was then called Global Warming but is now called Climate Change to account for cold weather in the winter. But Enron was going to make a fortune trading in carbon credits–yowsah, yowsah!

Silly Enron. They should’ve just watched Barack Obama and done as he has done.

Climbit Change Been Very, Very Good to Him!

Just going by his actual behavior, you’d never, never guess he was a Climbit Change salesman. If he believed half the garbage he shovels out to us, he’d be living in a mud hut and going to bed at sundown to save on electricity.

Show me one Climbit Change big shot who has imposed even one trivial hardship on himself to Save The Planet. Just one.

I’ll bet you can’t.

‘We Are Not Alone’

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Just this morning I found this new Voice of Eden video–We Are Not Alone, a new composition by Pepper Choplin. So the choir assembles under the banyan tree and sings it.

Meanwhile, the hymn contest is still on, you could win an autographed book or an original T-shirt–and I can’t explain why the leading hymn has only 21 views. Anyone can enter, and so many of you have never requested a hymn–why be bashful?

How to Hold a Cat’s Attention

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So many people say their cats ignore them. It’s true. You can recite the Gettysburg Address to your cat and it’s like your not even in the room. Even William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech won’t budge them.

What you need is a popcorn maker. This humble appliance succeeds where history’s greatest orators fail. We could’ve gotten Barry Goldwater elected president, if only we’d known.

Bonus Hymn, ‘Up from the Grave He Arose’

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This hymn has been in my head all afternoon, which makes me think I ought to post it: I want to hear it again. And maybe some of you do, too–Up From the Grave He Arose, by the Voice of Eden.

Sanity Break: Old-Fashioned Natural History

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The Golden Treasury of Natural History by Bertha Morris Parker: Very Good Hardcover w/ Jacket (1952) | JDBFamily

One of the glories of my childhood was The Golden Treasury of National History by Bertha Morris Parker, copyright 1952. That painting of the plesiosaur (above) is one of my all-time favorite pictures. Hours and hours and hours I spent in that book! And it left me with a lifelong fascination for animals past and present.

Patty got me a used copy for my birthday last year, and I resort to it sometimes when I’m feeling stressed, tired, or just hung out to dry. I did that today.

Okay, a lot of the science in the book–especially with regard to life in the distant prehistoric past–is hooey. Even as our science today will be tomorrow’s hooey. I don’t blame Bertha Morris Parker, whose work I admire very much. She had to go with the science that she had. But really, I doubt the giant ground sloths went extinct because they never found a comfortable place to rest their claws. Or that dinosaurs vanished because they just didn’t have enough sense to adapt to changing conditions. It was 1952 settled science.

What I love here is the vastness and the intricacy of God’s creation, the enduring mysteries of life on earth, and the overwhelming “Wow!” factor I find in giant prehistoric animals. And happy childhood memories are a plus–my Uncle Bernie reading to me from the book and having the devil’s own time trying to pronounce the dinosaurs’ name: and me not correcting him because I loved him and knew that he was reading to me because he loved his brother’s children.

And now I’m getting a little teary-eyed, so I guess I’d better stop.

Med Schools: Increasingly, a Truth-Free Zone

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Daffy Duck Crazy Laugh Supercut

It’s only funny in cartoons.

Why are we doing things like this?

Recently a professor at a University of California medical school groveled to his wokie students: “I said ‘when a woman is pregnant,’ which implies that only women can get pregnant, and I most sincerely apologize to all of you” (https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/med-schools-are-now-denying-biological).

And we’re seeing more and more of this, as “transgender” mania sweeps through our alleged education system.

Truth break: A “transgender man” is a woman. A “transgender woman” is a man. The terms are simply nonsense.

And medical patients are going to die because being Politically Correct is more important to doctors than being right.

This is stupid. More than stupid, it’s insane. A denial of reality. And now it’s seeped into our medical schools–places supposedly devoted to “science,” but increasingly hung up on “transgender” mumbo-jumbo.

Can we please stop doing this before we wreck our civilization? Do we really want doctors who can’t tell male from female?

‘Cause that’s what we’ll be getting.

Special! Guest Quokka Leaf Video!

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G’day! Byron the Quokka here with a special treat sent to us by Phoebe–top-secret video of a bunch of us quokkas snacking on leaves. We call them “ponga leaves” so that humans won’t come along and take ’em all.

We can never understand why humans don’t like leaves. You don’t know what you’re missing! And they’re good for you, too. A woman named Smith ate leaves and lived to be 120 years old. You could look it up!

We hope you appreciate this wee glimpse through a keyhole into the lovely motel room of quokka cuisine. I am working hard on my metaphors!

My Newswithviews Column, July 28 (‘My New Book “The Wind from Heaven” Is Out’)

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I have been blessed with the mission to write my “Bell Mountain” series of fantasy-adventure novels for young readers. Probably most of my readers are adults, but that’s all right: they can pass the books on to their children and grandchildren.

No. 13 in the series, “The Wind from Heaven,” has just been published.

My New Book “The Wind From Heaven” Is Out

There aren’t that many fantasies written from a Biblical worldview; but mine are. And I’ve tried to purge all the most annoying fantasy cliches from my books. No crusty but benign old wizards, thieves with hearts of gold, gorgeous beautiful girls who know kung-fu–to all that stuff, “Away wi’ ye!” I just can’t stand those jumpin’, spinnin’ kicks.

You can find out about all the books in the series by going to the home page and clicking “Books.” In fact, you don’t even have to exit this blog to order them.

‘The Doctrine of Despair’ (2018)

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See the source image

This was bad when I wrote about it in 2018, and it got a lot worse after the 2020 travesty of an election. That really crushed America.

Lately I found myself wondering, though–“Is this what God decided we needed–social chaos, a stolen election, a freakin’ pandemic–to wake us up? Could anything less have stirred us off our fainting couch?”

The Doctrine of Despair

Armed with the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, we must never give in–never, never, never. If it takes 100 years to get our country back, then we must fight for it–and pray for it–every day of those hundred years.

Our generation saw the fall and extinction of the Soviet Union. We grew up believing that would never happen, but it did. And quick, too!

Leftism in America will fail.

It would be a shame to surrender to such pipsqueaks.