from the Unashamed of Jesus blog
There shouldn’t be a need to say this… but there is. –LD
Don’t Be Deceived
Big Ape Politics
As a student of political science, I spent much time reading various theories of politics. None of the ones in the textbooks were anywhere near as convincing as what I found in Tarzan novels.
It came to me in a flash. I was reading about Peter the Great’s visit to London, and what a shambles he and his entourage made of the lovely house which had been provided for him. Did these men not know what a stairway was for? Did they not know not to ride their horses on the parquet flooring? They couldn’t have made a bigger mess if they’d been a tribe of apes…
Eureka!
In Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan stories, the apes are always competing with one another, often violently, to see who gets the most food, the most matings, the best place to sleep, and so on. And the ape who gets the most of everything, the biggest and the strongest and the meanest ape, gets to be king. Until a younger, stronger ape comes along and takes it away from him.
Holy cow! Politics!
It really is about who gets to have the most of everything–the most power, the most prestige, the biggest heap of other people’s money… It wasn’t even Burroughs who discovered this. We find it right there in the Bible, in 1 Samuel 8:10-18, in which Samuel warned the people of Israel exactly what would happen to them if they made good their resolve to have a king.
God knows we have a terrible penchant for finding big apes to rule over us. In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God warns Israel, through Moses, that if they simply must have a king, they ought to have the kind of king God recommends–a king whose duties will include writing out God’s law, longhand, word for word, every day; no foreigner, but a true Israelite; and a king who will not use his position to collect loads of wealth or a vast herd of wives.
Most of the kings they got were just big apes.
God’s guidance, and faithfulness to His word, makes us real men and women: not apes with car keys.
‘The “Everybody Does It” Defense’ (2016)
POTUS with his favorite intern
Allowing the people to choose its leaders by voting for them was supposed to protect us from leaders who would corrupt us or prey on us. But all too often we choose a leader who’s only just come along, seems like a good idea at the time, and turns out to be as dirty as they come.
The “Everybody Does It” defense is unworthy of adults–but boy, did we hear it a lot, during Bill Clinton’s presidency! And it wasn’t true! People insisted that it was, but they were wrong–and it was really quite easy to show them they were wrong.
Not that it changed anybody’s mind…
‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah’ (‘Cwm Rhondda’)
How that title, Cwm Rhondda, used to mystify me! Now I know it’s Welsh for “Rhondda Valley,” where I presume the melody originally came from. The actual title is Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah. This is the Morriston Orpheus Choir; and if they break into Welsh down the stretch–well, that’s enthusiasm.
Conked-Out Kitties
Quarter to seven, and we still haven’t had our blooming supper. Chinese food tonight: much too late to start cooking. And we have an invasion of flies and no idea how they’re getting in.
Cats, I feel you, guys! If I weren’t so frustrated, I’d conk out, too. But I thought I’d like to post a cat video before I do.
Oh, Boy, a New ‘Disorder’
My wife smokes cigarettes, as do millions of other people. As if it weren’t bad enough that she has that habit–no, she doesn’t think it’s a good thing–now she finds printed on her medical reports, in all caps, TOBACCO USE DISORDER.
It wouldn’t be quite so irritating if the same yocks denouncing tobacco use weren’t simultaneously touting the benefits of smoking marijuana. They want to ban tobacco and legalize pot. By “legalize” they mean trying to get everybody to smoke it.
I have known many pot-smokers in my time: idiots all. If there are some medical benefits from some of the chemicals in marijuana, okay, fine. You can probably get those without filling your lungs with raw smoke and getting stoned so that you spout twaddle and think it’s profound. Or you can cook it into brownies and serve them at a New Year’s party. I saw that once. They all wound up passed out on the floor. It wasn’t even midnight yet.
Stigmatizing tobacco use (how come smokers don’t rate as “victims”?) while lauding marijuana-smoking to the skies is nothing but hypocrisy.
I find it hard to get used to.
If It Ain’t Broke… (a rant)
Remember when the motto of any successful business was, “The customer is always right”? Kiss that one goodbye.
Let me vent about this while I have a few minutes between assorted medical errands. For years, one of my favorite forms of relaxation was to visit Pogo Games and play a harmless little game called “Mahjong Garden.” I went to the same chat room every time, and over the years made many friends there. Nothing could be more soothing than moving the tiles around while chatting with my friends.
Recently, because the technology had changed, Pogo found it necessary to make changes in many of its games, including Mahjong Garden. All right, we understand. But they also made a whole raft of changes that they didn’t have to make, for no reason at all. They changed the appearance of the tile sets to make them hard on the eyes, changed the names of all the chat rooms, and moved the chat to the bottom of the page instead of the side so that you can no longer play and chat at the same time. I must stress that none of those changes I have mentioned was at all necessary. It was just change for the sake of change.
Mahjong Garden was one of Pogo’s most popular games, and for no reason anyone can see, Pogo trashed it. Sort of like Microsoft getting rid of Windows 7, although at least they thought that making a successful Windows obsolete would make them money. I can’t imagine what Pogo was thinking.
Many, many of the players are disappointed, disgusted, or even totally fed up. I’ll be astounded if Pogo doesn’t lose customers because of this.
Oh! And because so very many players complained about the New Improved “Traditional” tile set (the one I used) and wanted it back the way it was, Pogo announced that it would do that for us.
Lie! All they did was change it some more. There’s nothing of the old familiar look about it. They must think we’ve all got amnesia. They pee on your leg and tell you that it’s raining. Was it so hard to do what their customers wanted them to do? Having injured us, why did they decide they might as well insult us, too?
When car companies do that, they wind up losing boxcar-loads of money.
So why do the tech companies keep on doing it?
I want my freakin’ Mahjong Garden back!
Huff-Puff-Pant!
All right! I’ve ground out this week’s Newswithviews column, I still have that monster of a Chalcedon novel to write (on social media/Internet censorship), I can forget about working on my book today, and in a little while we’ll have to dash off to the hospital and sit around and wait for heaven knows how long for Patty to get a scan the doctor ordered. Where suppertime fits into all this is one for Gyro Gearloose.
Pardon me, please, if I don’t get around to any nooze posts today.
Thank you all for your prayers–we need ’em!
We’re Back (sort of)
Patty’s doctor appointment took up practically the whole morning, and she now has stuff to do and places to go that makes my head spin. Don’t ask me to list it all.
The upside to this is that she feels better already, because something’s being done. At least she came out of this appointment with an inhaler, so she’s already ahead of what she got from the other guy, which was tons of tests and no diagnosis–no treatment, either.
Meanwhile the doctor has noted TOBACCO USE DISORDER–it used to be called “smoking”–on all her papers (but of course it’s A-OK to smoke pot!), and ascertained that she doesn’t have a gun. When did doctors get deputized as Junior G-Men, to find out who’s exercising our Second Amendment right? I find it rather sinister that the government uses doctors to make its little list…
There probably won’t be much to read here today. I have tons of work to do and I don’t see how I’ll be able to do it.
Please, dear readers, avail yourselves of the Archives–all sorts of cool stuff in there, going back to 2012. Normal service, I hope, will be resumed tomorrow.
‘How to End Income Inequality’ (2014)
When you see fabulously wealthy politicians and celebrities yapping their heads off about “Income Inequality,” you have to wonder if they’re quite all there. I mean, they could always give you half their money, to make you equal to them.
But they’d always rather give away someone else’s money.
Here is an example from history of a nation that actually achieved income equality, if only for a little while.
I think they hit upon the only way to do it.