Tag: cultural musings

And Then They Booed God REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From September 7, 2012

After this post, I’ll try to stay away from politics for a while. But it isn’t every day that professional politicians do something so bizarre, so self-damaging, so crass as this.

Right in the middle of their national convention, on national TV, the Democrats booed God. In case you missed it, catch the video at http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=10455 .

First they took God’s name out of their party platform. When the public’s attention was called to that deletion, they decided they’d better put God’s name back in. Some guy claiming to be a minister of the United Methodist Church, and chairman of the platform committee, made a motion on the floor to make the change–because, he said, the Democrat platform just so brilliantly reflects God’s will.

Yep, that’s the very same Democrat platform that promotes same-sex mockmarriage and abortion on demand (paid for with public funds, no less). Those are two projects dear to the hearts of America’s flatline Protestant denominations, but about as estranged as you can possibly get from God’s will as revealed in Scripture. You might even say it would be profoundly insulting to God to have His name linked to such a document.

The convention chairman called for a voice vote by the delegates. Unable, after three tries, to get the result desired by the party leadership, he simply created his own reality by declaring that the “ayes” had it by a two-thirds majority–a blatantly untrue statement–and so God’s name goes back in. That’s when thousands of the delegates booed God.

What does it say about us as a people, that this continues to exist as a national party in America?

I Stuck My Toe in the Toxic Pool of Pop Culture

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This afternoon, I decided to catch up and do a “what ever happened to” search about some of the confused characters that were featured–no, more like inescapable–a few years back.

Jazz Jennings:  a highly confused little boy, whose mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided not to discourage her child in this sexual identity thing, but instead chose to go full-bore down the road of fostering and encouraging the delusion.  This started when he was a toddler.  That meant puberty blockers and “sex reassignment surgery”.  I could describe that, but I won’t.  It would do credit to the Spanish Inquisition.  Jazz  claims to be  now very happy, because “she” just lost over a hundred pounds (due to a binge eating problem).  Also, Jazz says there is no boyfriend because right now the main focus will be on “herself”.

Chaz Bono: This individual is Cher’s daughter (Chastity), who waited until the age of 40 before starting the mutilation process. She has done the whole spectrum (another group of surgeries which I will not describe.)  Breast amputation is only the start–and believe me it gets a lot worse.

Suddenly, I realized over an hour had gone by.

I didn’t want to do any more.

If it wasn’t the dead of winter and I couldn’t move my car, I would have liked a nice long swim in some very, very clean water.

Anyone who says our popular culture is not toxic is just plain crazy.

What a Chump I Was in College REPRINT

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From November 1, 2014

While I was a college student, one of my favorite books was Hercules, My Shipmate by Robert Graves, a re-telling of the story of Jason and the Argonauts. So I was delighted when my wife gave me a copy of it for Christmas. It must’ve been 40 years or more since I’d read it last.

Many books and movies I liked when I was young, I still like now. Some I like even more, like The Lord of the Rings, Agatha Christie’s novels, and Peter Sellers in Never Let Go. And I’ve always enjoyed Robert Graves’ most famous novel, I, Claudius (although Jack Pullman’s screenplay for the I, Claudius TV series is even better). Naturally I expected to be delighted by Hercules, My Shipmate.

Everyone, I suppose, once knew someone whom they thought was the absolute bee’s knees. Then you lose touch with this person, make contact again 30 years later, and wind up asking yourself, “What did I ever see in him? He is a total putz!”

So it went with Hercules, My Shipmate. *Sigh* Mostly it was Robert Graves reconstructing and then wildly enthusing over the creepy paganism of pre-Classical Greece, complete with human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism.

What did I ever see in this? Could I really have been such a chump, back then?

Yes, college can be rather an overwhelming experience. It took me about 30 years to outgrow it, and a lot of people never outgrow it. The better to manipulate you, your professors convince your intellectually defenseless 19-year-old self that you’re a thousand times smarter than your parents and you don’t need any of their silly old stuff anymore–including all that Christianity business. Why, in no time at all, you’ll be as smart as one of these professors!

I look back on this and shudder.

Toxic Fiction REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From June 30, 2013

Ages ago, one of my wife’s co-workers bought a rental property with a paid-up tenant, a little old lady who’d been there for years. The new owner wanted someone who could pay a higher rent, so she evicted the old woman–and came to work the next day bragging about it. “Just like J.R.!” she crowed.

She was referring to “J.R. Ewing,” the antihero played by Larry Hagman in the old TV series, Dallas. She was gloriously happy that she’d done something worthy of the villain in a TV show. (If you’re too young to have any idea what I’m talking about–well, go find out what I’m talking about.)

[Just in case you think God pays no attention to these things: The J.R. wannabe spent a lot of money remodeling the property and spiffing it up, and soon got the new tenants she asked for. They never paid the rent, and inside of two months, turned the place into a slum.]

As Solon once said, some 2,500 years ago, “If you put all those lies up on your stage, someday we’ll have them in our business.”

Far be it from me, as a story-teller, to say “No more story-telling!” But fiction can exert a powerful influence on the behavior of its consumers, and it’s so constantly available in so many different forms–novels, TV, comic books, movies, cable “news” shows. To what extent is our fiction responsible for the rotting-away of our Western  culture? Is it the fault of amoral story-tellers who don’t care what they create, as long as it makes a buck? Or is it the fault of mindless consumers who will gobble up anything as long as it’s labeled “entertainment”?

Just asking…

PS–The link to “Dallas” was supposed to take you to the TV show, but the stupid computer decided you would be better served by a high-altitude aerial photo of the city of Dallas. If you want to find out about this classic TV show, the link to “J.R. Ewing” will get you there.

A Canadian Tragedy (Or Is It a Farce?) REPRINT

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From November 20, 2012

 

This was bound to happen.  In this excursion into Canadian public policy, the irresistible force has met the immoveable object.

As reported Nov. 16 in The Toronto Sun, a lesbian went to a Muslim barbershop in Toronto and demanded a “businessman’s haircut.” The Muslim barber told her to get lost. So the lesbian, of course, ran to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal and filed a complaint against the barber.

Hmmm… By law, Canada’s Multicultural Act, the Muslim has an inalienable right to refrain from touching a woman, let alone giving her a haircut. And by law, Canada’s Human Rights Act, the lesbian has an inalienable right to force the Muslim to give her a haircut.

O frabjous day! The irresistibly ridiculous has collided with the immoveably inane!

For years both lesbians and Muslims in Canada have used the “human rights” commissions and tribunals to bully Christians. It was their happy hunting ground. The state pays every cent of the plaintiff’s legal costs, the normal rules of evidence do not apply, and we know of not one instance in which the Christian defendant was not screwed.

But now comes the power struggle which I’ve long predicted–the Gays vs. Muslims Steel Cage Match!

Let’s sit back and watch the fun.

 

More Insane Liberal Beliefs REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From October 7, 2014

The notions libs ‘n’ progs have rattling around in their skulls, who can explain them? It’s all I can do just to collect them. Here are a few more gems from this collection.

*The murdering savages who call themselves “The Islamic State” have nothing to do with Islam. Nope, nothing at all.

*It’s OK to import Ebola into this country because no Americans will catch it. We know this because the government tells us so.

*Pouring uncounted millions of illegal aliens into the country all at once, many of them carrying all sorts of tropical diseases, most of them unemployed and unemployable, hardly any of them able to speak English, will turn out to be a good thing for America. Honest.

*Chelsea Clinton is America’s bright hope for the future.

I’m sorry, but that last one has upset me. I just can’t face any more of these preposterous beliefs today. Besides, you can think of as many as I can. Please feel free to add to the list.

Our New Year’s Eve REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From January 1, 2015

Patty and I like to spend New Year’s Eve quietly, at home. So we did a jigsaw puzzle, enjoyed a nice supper, had a nap, and then watched an Inspector Morse episode. At the approach of midnight, we bundled up and went outside to watch our town’s annual New Year’s Eve fireworks display, which is a trial for our cats.

Wham-boom-boom! Fifteen minutes of loud and gaudy fireworks. By “loud” I mean you could feel it in your chest. I wonder what that does if you’re wearing a pacemaker.

The show concluded, my wife went immediately to the Drudge Report and found a story, with video, of some hapless woman who suffered a little tiny cat scratch and soon discovered that some parasitic life-form was crawling around under her skin. It turned out to be a hookworm.

Next, Patty read me a story about some racist ninny complaining about Target’s ad for its new Little Orphan Annie dress. The complaint was that Target’s model was white, that is Caucasian, “and Little Orphan Annie doesn’t look like that!” Apparently Annie is now supposed to be black, after being white for more years than I’ve been alive. Racism strikes again! How dare they show an Orphan Annie who isn’t black?

“You know what?” I said. “I don’t want to hear any more of this. The year is only minutes old, and already I’ve heard about some gruesome worm eating up this woman’s flesh, and some utterly inane complaint about something a sane person wouldn’t even notice. I mean, I just can’t wait to see what I’m gonna dream about tonight!”

Well, all it proves is that our problems have all followed us into 2015.

Meanwhile, the Japanese are working their butts off to replace real people with robots–the more realistic, the better. It seems they don’t want anything much to do with real, live people anymore, and their collapsing birth rate shows it.

Proverbs 8:36, “[A]ll they that hate me love death,” sums up the current state of our culture.

Neverthless, “The LORD reigneth” (Psalm 99:1, and many places elsewhere). And, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter:9).

It’s something to remember. All year long.

An Answer to a Bible-Basher REPRINT

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From November 21, 2013

“Would you be willing to stand in a court of law and say that, yes, Jonah did in fact spend three days in the belly of a great fish?”

Sooner or later, every high-school charlie trots out this ancient cliche. They hug themselves, grinning at the thought of how they’ve just cut the floor out from everyone who believes the Bible.

If there’s one thing worse than an idiot, it’s a boring idiot. At least give us some fresh, creative idiocy–not this old stuff that’s been going round and round since 1563.

So a “court of law” is to be the high authority? For most of American history, a witness in a court of law had to swear on the Bible, by almighty God, that his evidence is true. Would the witness ever have been asked to swear on the Bible that the Bible isn’t true? Political correctness has in recent years moved us to abandon this practice; but to this day, the President of the United States takes his oath of office with his hand on the Bible.

But if the court of law really is the high authority, does every witness tell the truth? Are we sure of hearing nothing but the truth in any court of law?

The Bible must be fiction, reasons the fool who is wise in his own eyes, because it includes accounts of miracles. A miracle is something that our experience of the world tells us cannot happen. More–it’s something the Experts tell us cannot happen. Miracles happen in the Bible, therefor the Bible can’t be true.

But the Bible attributes miracles to God, and recognizes them as rare exceptions to the laws of nature. That’s what makes them miracles. Indeed, Moses got in serious trouble for taking credit to himself for one of God’s miracles–“Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10)

So let’s ask the Bible-basher a question.

Would you be willing to stand in a court of law and say, yes, life arose from non-living materials and “evolved” into dinosaurs, rosebushes, and Mozart?

Now who’s talking miracles?

Fallacies of Pop Christianity REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From February 16, 2013

 

With the churches in a coma when it comes to teaching the Bible, American Christians have collected some pretty funny ideas about theology. These may be described as Pop Christianity, as distinct from the real thing propounded in the Bible. Here are three of its major tenets.

1. If Jesus didn’t explicitly say it was wrong, it must be all right. This is the fallback position for liberals in the Church to excuse their espousal of sodomy: Jesus never gave a sermon against it. He didn’t explicitly condemn pedophilia, drunk driving, or voter fraud, either. But it’s a great excuse for supporting something that the Bible calls abomination.

2. Judge not. Never, never, never! Especially do not judge prominent “progressives” and their policies, notorious perverts, morality-less celebrities, or anybody who says God’s Word is poobah. This precept is based on two words lifted from one verse (Matthew 5:25) and used to cancel out the whole rest of the Bible. But really, it’s not inexcusably self-righteous to judge Jerry Sandusky or the U. S. Senate.

3. Our beliefs must conform to Science. All the stuff in the Bible that jars with Big Science dogmas like Evolution, the Big Bang, or whatever–that Bible content must either be totally ignored, or else dismissed as “poetry” or “just a figure of speech” (making it confusing to keep track of the real poetry and real figurative language in the Bible). This is to make the pronouncements of sinful mortals in lab coats a higher standard of truth than God’s own Word.

These are the Big Three of Pop Christianity, and very much responsible for our country being the way it is. It has rushed into the vacuum created by the negligence of churches.

Go ahead: quiz your pastor, and see how much of this pop pablum has crept into his theology.

Is the Lord Trying to Tell Me Something? REPRINT

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Extinct hoofed animals looked like gorilla-horse | Earth Archives

 

From June 15, 2020

Knuckle-bear and calf, Lintum Forest

I am so not ready to go back to writing about the Chinese Communist Wuhan Death Virus, riots, soulless white liberals, and all that other schiff that everybody else is writing about. I am so not up for it, it isn’t funny.

That’s not like me. Usually on Monday I’m ready to wade back into the hurly-burly. So why am I thinking that today I’d like to work on my new book and put up a few blog posts that have nothing to do with Far Left Crazy trying to murder our country? I mean, we have to fight them, and we have to win.

But is God telling me, “I will fight them, boy. You go write your book”?

Yeahbut, yeahbut–Lord, what about my Newswithviews column?

“You don’t even know what you want to write for that. If I told you to sit down and write it today, you’d be stuck. So don’t worry about it.”

Tomorrow, then. I’ll get back into the melee tomorrow. I guess.