Reading Paul in a Postmodern Context

In the face of a disconnected world
    where home is a domain in cyberspace
    where neighbourhood is a chat room
    where public space is a shopping mall
    where information technology promises
    a tuned in, reconnected world
        all things hold together in Christ
        the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
            all cohering and interconnected in Jesus

...just a small cut n' paste from Brian J. Walsh in an a remixing of the epistle of Colossians from the apostle Paul.

...i don't know if this is how Paul would say it today, but it does touch a nerve at least on my present despair... i thought it an interesting note also that at the top of the booklist from the leading post-modern Christian spokesman is Walker Percy's non-fiction, Message in a Bottle. it's a book on semiotics and communications and finding meaning with others through the mystery of words. (it's an ok read and interesting... just strange to find it here... hmmmmmmm what's the connection?.... i continually find myself reading the sign-posts in life - looking for clues.... oddly enough, they seem to pop up with some kind of synchronicity.)

...incidently, the full title is The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do With the Other by Walker Percy

Christian Anarchist

...maybe I should be a Christian anarchist like this Jesus. I could dig hanging out with Tolstoy, Thoreau and Kierkegaard as a bonus, too.

Post Modern Christians vs. Fundamentalist Christians ?

...amazing.

... there is a serious little feud going on in Christianity that i didn't even know about... Emerging Church VS. traditional Evangelicals... pretty interesting too....

...a good start for me was reading an open letter by Brian McLaren to Chuck Colson (former Nixon "hatchet man" and founder of a born-again prison ministries) in response to an article in Christianity Today condemning the "emerging church."

...then Chuck Colson writes back.

(...good but heady intros into both fields of thought)

Can I be completely honest with myself and still be a Christian? VI

Yeah. I can..

...and i don't mean Yes! or Hell Yes! nor do i mean yeah just kind a.... i just mean yeah... just yeah.

I'm doing it now. I am completely honest with myself and yet somehow i'm still a Christian.

I've been doing it a long time.

...hmmmmm...

I'd like to say this is the end of these doubts and struggles, but it's not. This thirsty quest never ends. It just seems to pause now and then.

Christianity in a Post Modern Culture?

...before I go off on my study/tirade of stuff Jesus said, i've gotta point out this new flow of churchianity called the "emergent chuch." the chief criticism of it of late has come a baptist theologian here. Responses are now being made by what this theologian has tagged as the leaders of this emergent church. ...and just as i'm starting to learn that there is an emerging church they're thinking about changing the name.

...in reality it seems to be a movement trying to be inline with the emerging post-modern culture that we find ourselves in along with the technobabble "now-this" culture that goes with it... (huff huff... pant.. pant... i can't hardly keep up.)

...anyway, i don't even think i'll go round and around again in my mind of what Jesus said and did... i don't understand it. I don't understand Him... i try... i just don't ... what's the Kingdom of God? ...where is it? is it literal? is it just within me? is it yet to come? i've had answers on these things before, but i don't think i do now... but i think i can still answer my primary question... Can I be completely honest with myself and still be a Christian?

...if by "being a Christian" i mean being a follower and believer of what is the historical Jesus Christ and not being a member of some complex socio-cultural value-laden mostly protestant predominantly pop-cultured Americanish consumer society, then i can answer my long-blogging question to myself. Yes, i think i can. But it's still a movement of faith beyond the simply rationale. I can't explain it, but i don't feel intellectually compromised.

... i just believe, damn it! ...can't you just accept that?!

...and i'm not stupid!

(sorry - got a little hostile there)

:)

Can I be completely honest with myself and still be a Christian? - part V

So I have to take some time off to go and study what this Christ said. (Like I haven't done this a zillion times already, yet here I am again still. Geesh!)

But I can make some preamble discussion points that I’ve already discovered from past research that I just can't hardly question any further. These basically are as follows:

Jesus the Jew was not an urban myth.

The Jesus of Nazareth tale is not a hoax. Nor is it an ex post facto fabrication of a group of fishermen turned religious zealots. Nor was it a simple exaggeration into the miraculous of common day events. He did exist in history and he did walk the course of miles and miles from one town to the next and back again in the Galilee region around 30 A.D. preaching revolutionary ideas and performing what appeared to be miracles to the crowds that followed him.

There's just been too much serious serious research effort and studies done walking and tracing the paths that Jesus of Nazareth walked. I've read about half of Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah published in 1885 and this is a monumental publication of known research efforts. It’s totally amazing to me how every step and saying has been ad infinitum compared to the culture and geography of the time and mapped out over and over again. To make a cheap argument that Jesus never existed is intellectually lazy and intentionally self-deceptive at best -even when presented from pseudo-experts in a pseudo-documentary.

The documentation we have about Jesus Christ is reliable.

Again, there's just too much research that's been done on this. (I don't even begin to have to energy to go and try to disprove or prove any of the New Testament starting from myself.)

I can at least go back and read the biographies (gospels) written by Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and be satisfied that I am reading the words that this special guy named Jesus actually said to these people at the time.

Again, ultimately I could be wrong. I could always be wrong. But I think I can be at peace enough, given the studies done by others, that I don't have to keep going back to the fundamental questions of "how do you know Jesus even existed?" and "how do you know the writing we have of him aren’t frauds?"

I think I can safely study the words of Jesus to see what he said.

I'd much rather all this be obvious. But it's not.

I'd much rather also that I could "know for sure" when I conclude things, but unfortunately, I must admit, that I will always be open to the idea that I may be wrong - whatever a viewpoint I take. That sucks.

But I didn't create this situation. I'm only a creature within it - standing upon a desert isle looking around to see what I can find.

Can I be completely honest with myself and still be a Christian? - part IV

And so, I am lost.

I stand upon a desert isle looking around trying to find out how i got here and is Anyone ELSE out THERE.

I don't know. I can stand around and speculate. I look around and see what i can find. I can ask other people and see what they think and what they've found. But they are no better off than me. Everyone else seems also to be standing alone on an isle in need of an answer.

I can conclude. Yep. This is all there is. I don't see another Grand-One controlling things. I don't see a father figure, all-knowing, all-powerful Being ruling this grand universe or my tiny floating rock island. No one else is out there. Yep. I am alone - just you and me - and this rock island - and the few other things i see growing and crawling around.

But i can start studying. I can look around.

It wouldn't be right for me to just stand here and complain that the universe hasn't blatantly revealed itself to me. And God, if he exists, he should've just been obvious. Maybe i have to work to find out. Maybe i have to struggle through this exploration of the world (science) to find what i can find. Maybe to conclude that He is not there, because He's not made himself obvious to me is just plain stupid and arrogant on my part. Who the heck do i really think i am. Maybe (just maybe), it's not all about me. Or you.

[But I've already concluded that God can't be discovered through the obvious or through scientific instruments that extend the obvious. So now I'm just going in circles.]

....hmmmm... maybe it ain't about me ... i'm still tempted to complain though.... i'm kind of whiny and expecting and needy by nature... but that's just me... i'm a whiny-baby.

Waaaaahhhhhhhhhh !!!

Help! Somebody give me answer!

Crap. Nobody's out there. Or he's not listening. Or he's mad at me. Or he just don't care. Or he's a deaf-mute. Or he's just not there. Or He's there, but my preferred means of communication and way of knowing isn't His way of communication and knowing. Maybe i am in some kind of strange problematic fix of space and time that makes me this hampered creature that i am. Maybe i am some kind of remnant genetic adaptation that's just plain fucked up.

But... as hard as i try... i can't pretend i don't know this other story... this one i keep trying to forget. I keep trying to disbelieve. One i desperately don't want to believe, but at the same time can't deny that i've heard.

This crappy guy named Jesus Christ. Yes. He screws everything up. If you listen to him (or actually the words his students CLAIMED he said), he messes up everything. If he hadn't come along, or if i hadn't heard his story and his words, i'd be a simple scientific atheist asshole (not that atheists are assholes, but I would be definitely.)

Thanks Jesus. Thanks for screwing it all up. Why did you come and say all you said and die and then all you dang diciples who claimed he came back from the dead and walked around and revealed other things and said all this stuff about God. Then these dang disciples had to go and actually BELIEVE all that they said and all that they saw and then say all that they said they saw! What the heck?! You guys were making all that up, right? Then why'd you take it all the way to your graves? This story should've died on the vine. Or faded into another myth.

You all sure did make a big splash in this human drama. For just one guy and 12 followers, you set the world on fire.

Jesus - you said things that make all the difference in the world. I've got to reconsider everything now.

What? You don't even know what all he's said? You bum! You lazy bum! You're as whiny as me - almost.

(gee.... have i gone schizo now? maybe. but at least i'm moving. it gets tiring just standing in a corner beating myself all the time... geez, haven't i been this route before.... it looks familiar... how'd i get all the way back to the starting block? ... i forget things soooooooooo easily.... [sigh!]...[grooooan!].... [sigh some more.])

Can I be completely honest with myself and still be a Christian? - part III

It's not obvious whether there's a God or not... that makes me mad.

This definitely leans in favor of those who figure He doesn't exist. If it were my druthers, I'd have him hovering over a temple somewhere, maybe in the Middle East or Africa or Utah. We could all travel (like to Mecca) and talk to Him there and ask Him questions and plead with him to do us favors or heck - maybe just worship him or something... maybe even bring him gifts, or thank him for life or ask him to heal our sick children... you know.... basic things like that.

...but maybe that's a time to come.... maybe we aren't in the know because of some kind of time-span we're in where God and man are just separated and aren't able to know each other... maybe he's just decided to abandon us... maybe he has.

...more than likely, I'll have to admit, God just isn't there. He's not obvious because He doesn't exist. He is only a mythological outcropping of our imaginations. That seems very reasonable.

If I were cast onto a desert isle and found myself awake but with amnesia, after a certain amount of time, I think I would start calling out to the sky, and hope that some great big something/someone/other could hear me and maybe even come to rescue me and give me help and answers to questions I might have.

I might even start imagining that I could sense or tell when His invisible presence was watching me or not. If I had a wife and other people on the isle with me and I beat her and then felt bad about it (because I could relate that, "geez, I myself wouldn't want to be beaten") I might even want my bad deed to be wiped out and forgotten by this unseen omnipotent God that I was imagining. I might even create some kind of system where for every bad thing I did, I would give up some good thing (chop off my finger, sacrifice a goat, etc.) to make things even again with the universe (my mind, and my God.) I could even become a secret representative of my God and tell others that they have to do what I tell them or I'll get my God angry and after them. But if they pay me money (or goats or sex or something good) I could then appease this God for them and everyone would be happy.

Geez... this all sounds about like how I would expect a society to develop. If Lord of the Flies had a part two, it would've developed into something like this (had the Adults of course not stepped into the course of their history - calling the whole thing off.)

The Bible (actually a "prophet" named Isaiah claiming to speak for the god of the Jews) quotes God as saying, "My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thougts... my ways (and thoughts) are higher than your ways and thoughts"... meaning God has it figured out and is doing it different than how I think he should.

Again, some of the oldest text in existence cites a dilemma where the fellow named Job had a series of super rotten events happen in his life and then claims to talk to God face to face (so he could throw up into His face and say, "What the heck? this ain't fair! Why'd you let all these bad things happen to me." And God is quoted as simply rebuking him with, "Where were you when I created this whole universe anyway?" ... as in "you are a small puny human that i created and you don't have the right to question the things i do."

...so it could be that I just have no right to ask or maybe even know anything about God ...but then why do I imagine Him? ...why do I even ask if He's there or not?

Am I made with some kind of aching in my being (heart/soul/mind/spirit/brainwaves) that wants to know and maybe even like Mulder in the X-files WANTS to believe? Maybe.

But it's easy to see this as some kind of emotional, cultural, pre-conceived need and notion that's easily fabricated in society and the mind. That's pretty easy to believe actually. But it still leaves me feeling kind of empty and alone.

But truthfully, I'd rather feel empty and alone, than to be fooling myself. (I think?)

The bad news again now is ... whatever I believe.... I may be wrong.

Crap! This ain't good at all.

Can I be completely honest with myself and still be a Christian? - part II

...well if i can conclude that God is not obvious, then i have at least a few personal implications from this:

How can i be held accountable by a God that is not obvious?

I'm assuming here that "God" as well as carrying some implied all-powerfulness, carries also a responsibility for judgement (hopefully justice) and an ultimate intervention into the human condition.

If the very fact that his existence is indeed questionable (i.e. not obvious), then how can i be held accountable or responsible for the knowledge that He exists? I mean there may be some other way to find out about God, but if its not really obvious, should i be condemned for not discovering Him or pursuing a course of action that does discover Him?

And if He doesn't exist, then it is a waste of time pursuing a discovery of His existence (outside of other extra peripheral benefits such as self-discovery.)

...it would also be good to not get wrapped up into the religiousity of a faith with hopes of a life after death and judgement for all eternity of everything ever done right and wrong - all things that would have to be performed by some outside supreme Diety.

If He's not there (i'm avoiding the He/She/It thing for now if it's okay), then these grand-scheme events will never happen. ( yes, i'm throwing add-on attributes and events of a God not necessarily required, but hey, these things kind of go with the job of being Supreme Ruler.)

To reiterate:

God is not obivious. But, if He is there, then:
It would at least be harsh to hold myself accountable or to be held accountable by Him.

And, why be subtle or hidden? Why doesn't he just come out with it? Are we in some kind of dark planet scenario that's makes us incapable of seeing, hearing, (knowing?) God ala C.S. Lewis science fiction? Has he thrown us out of paradise ala "Garden of Eden" story? Is the hiddeness or subtleness a lack of my ability in nature? But by definition He would still have to be choosing to be "non-obvious" since by simply being God He could be making Himself known obviously to anyone or everyone at any given point in time!

God is not obivious. But, if He is NOT there, then:
The attempt to discover Him at best only produces side-effect benefits for myself or societal benefits for others. (He obviously won't be discovered if He does not exist. Right?)

And what a waste of effort and frustration to try and please some non-existing entity! The fabricated god that humans create in their minds is only a personal or societal reinforcer of norms and values. No actual entity that lives in the sky or on another planet or in another realm will ever judge us, rescue us, entreat us, hear us, or intervene into our ongoing history of people upon this planet. God is only a myth required perhaps by men to supplement their struggles for survival - justifying actions, keeping non-beneficial behaviors in check, and possibly satisfying mental and emotional needs for an ultimate parent figure. All these may be good things and good reasons to pretend or convince ourselves that there is a god, but of course it does not make it so. (I don't think.)

And finally (for now),

God is not obvious. And unless He/She/It (we're back) changes this non-obviousness, then wherever we fall on this issue, WE MIGHT BE WRONG.

You get that? Hey believer! Hey non-believer! Atheist! Non-atheist! You and i might be wrong!

You may think there is, but maybe there isn't a God.

You may think there isn't, but maybe there is a God.

...hmmmmm.

(can i buy into this much at least? i think so.)

Can I be completely honest with myself and still be a Christian?

Maybe. Maybe not. I'm willing to see.

For a starter, I have to establish this first logical conclusion below:

Let's face it. Nothing in this world shows us that there is a God. You can go outside, look at the sun, moon, and stars - and the trees, rocks and streams - nothing objectively allows one person to point and another person to see and say, "Ah, yes. There is a personality like mine but that is all-powerful. And He (She? It?) must be the maker of all this."

Because there IS a "thing", does not neccessarily mean some other "thing" made that thing. Some things just exist. And they change and move and alter chemical make-ups or are born and die and move through time.

I pick up a rock. Nobody made it. It just is. It came from other rocks that came from molten chemicals maybe from some other day and age from way back. Or maybe not. But wind and rain and myself and animals and pressure and dirt and air and other things have changed this rock from who knows how long back? I can't tell. But because this rock exists, I can not justifiably build a mental construction of a divine being that sits above me making these kinds of things. I mean I can construe this, but in all honesty that's not a fair conjecture. It's a conjecture of choice and more fairly, a conjecture of imagination and will. Or even faith.

So, (in contrast to what intelligent design advocates say) one cannot step out into the world and point and say to someone else "See. God exists." and logically and necessarily expect agreement.

[I am purposely using a semiotic triangle of pointing and communicating between two people in an intersubjective manner ala Walker Percy to avoid the purely subjective conclusion-making inferences that anyone can make about most anything to oneself. We're trying to stay in the realm of the rational and communicable]

Let's face it. This is the truth.

The opposite also is true.

You cannot step out into the world and point and see and say, "See. There is no God."

The world itself is a big floating rock ...with growth and life and chemical reactions and things happening upon it over time. We are people upon this rock. We are aware of ourselves. We are aware we came from somewhere or something or someone. We do not know for sure what or where or who that someone or something is. We do not even know for sure that there is a someone or something out there. We may just be chemical processes that have gelled together and formed some sort of awareness and self-awareness as an anomaly to this bio-chemical world of animals and plants and growth and cycles of events that can occur upon a rock floating in space over time.

We really don't know and we really can't tell by standing up and looking around and trying to find the obvious.

It is not obvious.

Let's face it.

It is not obvious.

We do not know.

From this angle, starting from and with ourselves and our senses and the obvious world around us, it is not obvious where or how we came to be here. We do not know that there is a being with consciousness, and knowledge and forethought and creation-ability power that has made us who and what we are as beings and placed us upon this rock planet that we who speak English call earth.

It's just not obvious.

This is a big hurdle for me and a major stopping and starting point that I have to swallow hard several times before I can keep it down.

I'm still swallowing it ... so give me some time. But I am convinced that any intelligent, thoughtful, honest person has to agree with me on this point.

Any nay-sayers? If not then, I'll go on....

crap about iraq nobody cares about

...my son is a bit left, but he has been in Iraq for over a year now and swears that the situation is not good at all. He sent me an article with the following precursor:

hey dad,
i was looking for a good article about how things are here that matched up with some of the things i see. there's alot of hyped up writings about how bad things are doing than (not nearly as much lying garbage about how things are getting better i imagine) this one i thought is nice and to the point, free of sensational hooplah and last but not least: accurate. i doubt they report much in the states about how things really are doing so this is like a quick overview for you to read while your bored at work. something about bush's latest speech outlining our planning in Iraq just really irked me. so many blatant lies it's just ridiculous. enjoy.

... i asked him, "Really? are you sure this is a non-biased and a realistic view of how it is there? and can i publish this?" He replied:

sure and yes.
so much of this rings true like you wouldn't believe. especially when dealing with the contract world and seeing all the private companies that are out here using indian, pakistani, philipinno, and central american labor. and the term 'haji' is something i've used every day all the time without even thinking of how it's completely racist. i think every guy here uses that term well before iraqi or 'LN' local national, the PC term. after reading this i can see all these reflections of what it's talking about in the big picture in my every day little picture. it really opened my eyes.

...who am i to argue since he's there and i'm here?

Faith, Doubt and an Atheist Exposed

So is this how dumb our Christian stance sounds all the time? I hope not, but sadly, I know it probably does.

I heard a line recently. Someone talking about some beautiful paradise said, "It's better than heaven. There's no Christians there."

A friend of mine (I'm pretty sure he's a Christian, too) has a bumper sticker that says, "Lord, save me from your followers."

I understand these thoughts. Christians annoy me too (and I am one). Maybe it's just a certain type of Christian though that does. My faith isn't diminished I don't think, but I do feel different from these people. I love 'em and all still. I just feel like they're kind of retarded or hypnotized in a non-obvious cult-like daze.

On the other hand, Paul the Apostle talks about how God has chosen the foolish things in the world to confound the wise (Jesus' crucifixion being primary.)

There's always some kind of grand paradox that the universe seems to be playing. I'm sure if I ever became an atheist, I'd die and find out I was wrong. But as a Christian, I also have nagging doubts that this could all be some kind of grand historical mistake.

Its kind of like buying stocks. I'm almost always wrong. If I buy 'em I was wrong. If I don't buy 'em I was wrong.

Maybe I should be a Taoist.

I'm curious about the claims this atheist lady makes as to being able to sleep at night and be at peace with herself. That's along the lines of the same sales pitches Christian theology used to offer.

Funny... I don't feel at peace. Never have really. Is that really a side-effect of either Christianity or atheism? Or is it just a result of ceasing to argue with yourself?

Actually, most of the old testament prophets were pretty miserable. Elijah prayed to die. Jeremiah was a famous moaner-groaner. Most of them were isolated pessimists that everyone else hated. Only after they were long dead and gone were they praised or revered by anybody.

Except for Job. He actually got a bunch of material rewards again before he died. (But he did go through hell before that.)

Atheists, Muslims, and Wife-Swapping

...watched the TV show "Wife Swap" last night... featured an atheist family vs. a Christian family. What's most interesting is how the story is almost completely fabricated after the footage is taken. Here's a fairly good analysis of this show and of how "Reality" shows in general are put together - albeit a bit from the atheist's perspective.

[subject change]

...if you thought Muslims couldn't come up with a rational justification for terrorism you were wrong... it almost makes sense. They got one thing right (in the conclusion) - America has placed itself into a corner.

...oh and speaking of atheists, there's a new film out called "The God who Wasn't There" claiming that the historical Jesus didn't even exist. (geesh, people... get past this would you?) ... its entrance lines are:
Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture.
Super Size Me did it to fast food.
Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion.

...yeah... right.

(by the way, if you haven't seen Super Size Me, it's a must see.)

Meet Ricardo I. Zavala

I met Ricardo at a party only briefly a few weeks ago and found out that he has written several short stories that were published in some literary magazines. I've read them since and in my humble opinion they are very good.

The settings are from his Mexican-American boyhood days in South Texas and provide this Whiteboy a special insight into not only the life and times of this wonderful man and author, but a glimpse into the lives, frustrations, and hopes and dreams that many Mexican-Americans must experience.

Ricardo I. Zavala graciously gives permission here to reprint three of his short stories previously published. ("Scraps" published by the St. Edwards University literary journal - New Literati, the other two by Arizona State University.) Of course, all rights are reserved by the author himself. I hope you'll enjoy them as I did.

A small boy runs off into the fields to work and to learn more than he cares to in:
The Prayer
by Ricardo I. Zavala


One of the best short stories I've ever read. This disturbing canine drama reminds me of good 'ole Flannery O'Conner herself. It's a dog's world in:
Scraps
by Ricardo I. Zavala


My heart goes out to a small boy caught between two worlds in:
It No Looky Too Good
by Ricardo I. Zavala

Rattlesnakes Everywhere! Vaccine Me, Please!

...yet another example of two of my primary postulates which I'll state here for clarity:

1. Americans basically live in a "culture of fear"

2. Americans are out of touch with their natural environment

This shiny sign posted by doctors of veterinary science (I presume) intends to scare drivers passing by into spending money for a vaccine to keep themselves or their pets from DYING in case they get bit by a rattlesnake.

...a few personal observations if I may.

I used to be an amateur herpetologist that bred, raised, handled, studied, bought and sold at least hundreds, if not thousands of snakes, lizards and reptiles in general.

I live in an area that is some of the most heavily populated by wildlife land probably in Texas and possibly even in the lower 48 states (Texas Hill Country). I see some kind of wildlife everyday and have done a few roadkill surveys on this blog listing the animals alive and dead spotted.

I'm also an Environmental Science major that knows wild animals somewhat and watches for them continually.

I have YET to see a venomous snake alive or dead in the the 3 years I've lived here - either in nature or on the road.

I'm beginning to wonder if the rattlesnake roundups and general snake ignorance of the masses hasn't killed most of them off. For the first two years I hadn't seen a single snake of any kind anywhere while here in the Texas hill country. (I'm sure some are there, I just haven't seen any.)

So back to the point. This sign is warning everyone of the dangers of getting bitten by a rattlesnake. It is instead:
Postulate 1 - fear inducing
Postulate 2 - ignorance inducing

Don't be afraid. Don't be ignorant.

Whiteboy sitting in the American Kitchen sez:
"In case you didn't notice people, there's not that much wildlife left - let alone reason to worry about dying from it!"

Prisoner Discovers Oldest Christian Church

Razilo, who is serving a two-year sentence for traffic violations, was one of about 50 prisoners brought into the high-security Megiddo Prison...

This line is buried in the Yahoo story on the discovery of the oldest known Christian Church.

My only question is what the hell is someone doing hard labour in a maximum security prison for violating traffic laws? Did he run multiple red lights? A hit-and-run? A driving-while-intoxicated?

Is this a common occurance in Israel's justice system?

And yes, this does touch a sensitive nerve on my part. I was taken to county jail on my way to work one morning here in Hays County, Texas because I unknowingly owed some abstract surcharge (road tax) of $250 that the bureaucracy failed to mention to me. Good thing I wasn't in Israel. I'd be digging rocks and discovering artifacts for Israeli officials to gloat about.

Whiteboy sits in the American Kitchen and sez:
This could be you next

Willie Nelson Live in the Texas Hill Country

...saw Willie Nelson play his Texas hill country gig last night at the Floors Country Store in Helotes, Tx. Very nice show! ...wasn't really a big Willie fan before, but i gotta admit, that whatever cool is - that's Willie. Ok, i'll say it, for real, it's not a hoax - Willie is cool.

...lots of old long-haired men, tequila shots, and screaming young fans (men and women) ...a good crowd, a good venue, a good time.

This guy can play the guitar too! He really can. I've played myself ever since i was a child and always thought Willie was just a picker and grinner, strum-along kind of guy - but no - this guy really is a master. he's just got his own style and its a jazz kinda thing that goes along well with his singing style.... he's creative! a definite master of an expressive art called music.... i'm impressed and must say he probably deserves the iconic stature that's been given him.

His tour's called "Live and Kickin".... catch him if you can... he's definitely a must see event for every American while he's still around.

Whiteboy in this American Kitchen sez:

Yee haaaaa!!! Long Live Willie !!!

National Database on Your Personal Health

Making Sure Only the Healthy People Have Doctors

Did you know there is a national database on all your health records? Just like how your credit rating is reported by the big 3 - Equifax, Trans-Union, and Experian (formerly TRW) - your insurance claims, perscriptions, treatments and the like are recorded for and reported to the insurance industry. Apply for life, health, or disability insurance and this database is tapped first thing.

The company is MIB. They consider themselves as "a defender and guardian for both the insurance buying public, as well as for the insurance industry". They are in fact a centralized clearing house that provides medical and avocation information on people who apply for insurance to insurance companies.

Their central purpose is to keep people with health problems from joining the insurance pools of people who have not had health problems. They are watchdogs that consider people with health problems trying to get insurance as "jerks trying to butt in line."

They do offer a free exposure of their records to individuals if you happen to know about them and know how to request it. Basically, you call 1-866-692-6901, their disclosure number, and go through an automated series of verifications of identity and supposedly they mail you the report.

I never used to believe in national health care (ala Hillary Clinton), but I'm starting to wonder. My daughter Ariel is in Slovakia. She's been very sick. She doesn't have insurance or much money.

She went to a doctor there and says she got good care plus strong anti-biotics - all for about 20 US dollars. I'm not sure if this was subsidized by the government or not, but I know I couldn't get that here in the US.

I fell out of the insurance system and haven't had insurance for a number of years due to job changes and not being able to afford premiums, etc. It'll probably be expensive as hell to ever get back in.

I hope I don't get sick. Nor my wife. In the mean-time I'll find out what kind of risk the insurance industry considers me to be when I get my MIB report back.

Big Brother is still watching it looks like.

My American Bulldog - Phoebe Dove (named after my Great-Great Grandmother)

Doesn't my dog look like the old timey bulldog that used to roam through the Southern states before WWII? This is an antique advertisement from somewhere around the turn of the century. This other picture is Phoebe Dove, my American Bulldog and pick-of-the-litter from the famous American Bulldog stud, Joshua's Ol' Southern White. She's about 75 pounds and pure muscle and pure baby when it comes to her need for attention and her attachment to me - her owner. She's a good dog and I am proud to have her.

...the original history on how these American Bulldogs came about is pretty interesting. Basically they are, what is now known as, the English Bulldog BEFORE they were bred down into the pug-nose misfits that they are today. After bullbaiting was outlawed in 1825 and dog shows began forcing breeders to breed for type and looks only, the working functionality was bred out of the English bulldog to the point where the English bulldog today isn't athletic by any means. Females can't even deliver pups naturally and require C-sections due to the abnormally large heads. English bulldogs are also known for their breathing problems due to an extremely shortened muzzle.

American bulldogs are essentially a restored population nearly gone extinct descended from the actual bull-baiting bulldogs from the 1700s brought to this continent by the early English colonists. There are various theories though based on this basic theme.

Other American bulldog history links:

• One
  
• nother
• And another

Dead Animal Survey

...did another dead animal survey coming into work today... in the approx. 37 mile drive to work i spotted

1 dead tarantula,
1 dead Jack Rabbit,
1 dead opossum,
3 dead raccoons,
2 dead deer,
1 dead armadillo, and
1 dead something-or-other.

I also saw 1 live deer crossing traffic in front of me.

That's a total of 10 dead animals on the side of the road or splattered in the middle of the road driving in to work today between Wimberley, Tx. and Austin, Tx.

I stopped and took a picture of one dead raccoon.

Officially this is all known as roadkill (one word i think), but this nomenclature tends to downplay and even jest about what is simply dead animals on the side of the road run over by automobiles. The Texas Hill Country (this area) should be deemed the Dead-Animals-on-the-side-of-the-Road capital of the world.

All White with No Criminals in Site

There is a street in Austin, Texas named Gun Fight Lane. It is near Shotgun Ln., down the street from Ammunition Dr. and just off of Gatling Gun Ln. I guess this works in Texas. I bet there's not a Gun Fight Lane in East St. Louis, Illinois or Detroit, Michigan.

I'll bet this well-to-do white neighborhood was built prior to Columbine.

Speaking of Columbine, was it ever clear from Michael Moore's documentary that American's are not just so much in love with guns as that they are just basically paranoid? - it's the combination of the two that sparks danger.

Even a more interesting point from Moore's movie is the fact that all Americans lock their doors - a symptom of their general paranoia. (By definition - an unjustifiable fear that "someone out there" is "out to get me")

Most of my life I've hardly ever locked my doors. I consciously do not lock my doors unless I see a good reason to do so.

I mean why does it take a movie to point out that you can open your door and look around on the street and bascially see that there are not criminals running around looking for unlocked doors? Isn't it obvious?

But our media tells us otherwise.

And we listen to the media and form a world-view in our minds (a map) which is not congruent with the world that we can see and sense all around us (the territory.) Isn't this the very definition for insanity?

Korzybski thought that it was this incongruity between the mental "map" of the world and the objective "out there" of the world - the actual territory - that defines insanity.

I think Americans exemplify this incongruity best with their fear of "the bad guys" by the simple execution of always locking their doors. Cars or houses. We always lock 'em up and usually set an alarm, too.

I spent a couple of nights at a good friend of mine last week. I couldn't leave his house to go to my car or even step outside for a few moments without always unlocking the doors. They live in an quiet neighborhood with mostly old people.

I bet if you walk up and down Gun Fight Lane in Austin, Texas and check the doors - every one will be locked. The homes are on average $180,000 to $200,000 homes. All white with no criminals in site.

I wonder if in the days before air conditioning, when everybody sat out on the porch and walked and talked to the neighbors, if they locked their doors everytime they stepped in and out?

[Remember in "Bowling for Columbine" Michael Moore did the same test in Canada, by walking up to houses to check if the doors were locked and they were all unlocked - in contrast to the American homes tested]

Hmmmm, what is it we have lost here? Something important, but I'm not sure what. Maybe we should go over seas and kill all the "bad guys" before they get a chance to come over here and kill us. Am I sounding paranoid now? I better turn on the news and check.

[Full text of Korzybski's "Science and Sanity" here. But you should read some of the reviews here - very interesting.]

Animals on the Road: Dead or Alive

I saw 'em cleaning a dead deer off the side of the road yesterday and thought to myself, "hey, I oughta just track how many dead animals I see on a single morning's drive to work."

So this morning I did just that. (...counted live ones too)

Road - Distance	Animal	Dead or Alive	Notes
Sandy Point Rd - 2 miles	Deer	Live
	Deer	Live
FM 2325 - 8 miles	Skunk	Dead	Freshly dead - smelled
	?	Dead	unidentifiable
	?	Dead
	Vulture	Live	Turkey Vulture sitting on post
	Raccoon	Dead	Big one... real pretty fur
	Deer	Dead
Highway 290 - 13 miles	?	Dead	Deer ?
	?	Dead	Deer ? ...been dead awhile ...looked like a skin rug
	Deer	Dead	large doe
	Deer	Dead	small doe

There's the chart.

That's a total of 12 wildlife specimans spotted on just my ride to work this morning, and 9 of them dead.

I spotted a deer (which I thought was dead) which was just tangled in the barbed-wire fence a while back and set it free. Awhile back I also saw a small goat stuck in the fence. I turned around and drove back to it - filmed it - then set it free. About 2 days ago, there was a very big cow trotting down the side of the road. About a quarter mile up the road was a Hays County Sheriff officer pulled over. I stopped in front of him and told him about the loose cow. He said, "Why do you think I was pulled over and fixin' to go back there?" He acted like I was a crazy fool to even approach him about it. (Another jerk cop in my humble opinion.)

A lot of things don't matter that are supposed to; one of them is well-funded government schools.

So here's a New York City "Teacher of the Year" telling us that school is crap! ...a couple of interesting statements that he makes:

Last year at Southern Illinois University I gave a workshop in what the basic skills of a good life are as I understand them. Toward the end of it a young man rose in back and shouted at me: “I'm 25 years old, I've lived a quarter of a century, and I don't know how to do anything except pass tests. If the fan belt on my car broke on a lonely road in a snowstorm I'd freeze to death. Why have you done this to me?”

and again:

Does going to school matter if it uses up all the time you need to learn to build a house? If a 15-year-old kid was allowed to go to the Shelter Institute in Bath, Maine, he would be taught to build a beautiful post-and-beam Cape Cod home in three weeks, with all the math and calculations that entails; and if he stayed another three weeks he'd learn how to install a sewer system, water, heat and electric. If any American dream is universal, owning a home is it – but few government schools bother teaching you how to build one. Why is that? Everyone thinks a home matters.

My teacher used to tell me this.

Being a webpage designer (not a very good one) and a software engineer (mediocre at best) it's good to know that there are super-smart people in the 99.9 percentile (technically "ISPE" level, somewhere between "Poetic Genius" and "Prometheus" level) that are dumber than me. I mean... just think how smart you must be to figure out that black text on an ugly grey is hard to read - not to mention ugly.

Oh, but the cool message patting ourselves on the back with an Einstein quote on a firey background... ahhhh, now that makes up for it all! [hint: mouse over the flaming torch where it says, "Click here to see a hot message"]

Feeling Guilty but Not in Jail

So here's a few basic guys in prisons pleeding for letters. But they or someone's got to pay this website for them to put their profiles up. This is the group that nobody's written to yet. Dang! I bet it's lonely in there. What's that scripture quote from Jesus? "When you didn't visit that one person in prison, it was the same as not visiting me." [my paraphrase]

I need to visit somebody in prison, but probably won't. I sure do feel sorry for 'em though. I guess I'm as guilty as every other middle-class white Amercian Christian free man out there. Dang I feel guilty. I guess "neurotic" should be in there too.

Anyway, here's some cool quotes from Mike Tyson. What an angry man! Whew!

Prisons are Inhumane and It Could be You Next Time

Having spent time in jail now (see prior posts) I have much greater sympathy for those in prisons. One fellow that was in the holding tank with me at the time was facing 5 years in prison for multiple DUIs. He showed me paper-work and tried to put a good spin on it with, "Prison ain't so bad, they feed you everyday." When we were brought our meals (Hays County, Texas - county jail were I was being held for a driving violation), this fellow asked everyone else if he could have their meals if they didn't want 'em. It saddened me very much then and now to know that this young man's life is hopelessly going nowhere - basically because, due to what seemed like a semi-normal tendency to party and be a bit rowdy, he was pulled over by a cop after he'd been drinking.

I came from Illinios and am sorry to say that Illinois is famous for its prisons, but I didn't know how famous till I came across this article. I am even more ashamed now of the state I grew up in. Almost as ashamed as I am for the infamous ways Texas law and police seem to be treating their public citizens lately. (see posts on my being thrown in jail - Yes! I am mad about it!)

Here's an interesting piece of one man's story that starts with, "On April 1st, 1969, I was sentenced to a term of from two to six years at hard labor in the Illinois State Penitentiary, for possession of marijuana. "

Cool. They discovered little humans - hobbits! Oddly enough, they lived on the same islands where komodo dragons lived. Fantasy comes to life!

I was driving home last night and saw a buck deer sitting oddly close to the highway up on the shoulder of Hwy 290, west of Austin. I thought about stopping but figured if it had been hit by a car, then it was wounded and would probably die anyway. Sure enough on my way into work this morning, I looked for it - and of course it was lying there dead... nice little buck too... about a 6-pointer. There's lots of roadkill everywhere here in the Texas hill country. It's a shame we can't do something to help prevent so many animal deaths from automobiles.

I finally went and got my driver's license updated.... i had been driving around without the correct address on it and that's a bad thing... actually, i got throwed in jail already for it once - indirectly... no, wait... i was directly thrown in jail, but it was because i indirectly didn't update my license... and so i went to jail because they couldn't mail me and to let me know that my license was suspended for not paying a surcharge that i didn' know about. i didn't know about it because they will not forward mail to my present address and will only send it to old addresses... since i didn't update my license, i went to jail... make sense? ... to me neither... that's the Amercan justice system for you... screw up and go to jail and we're proud of it!

Anyway, i got the picture from my best friend who every once in a while spams me with the latest funny thing that he and everybody he knows emailed around to each other.... here is the funny story attached... (i didn't want to spam-mail my friends, so i blogged it instead, giving me a chance to quickly google for a driver's license and cut n' paste some wasted time here at work...

A man was walking down the street when he was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless man who asked him for a couple of dollars for dinner.
The man took out his wallet, extracted ten dollars and asked, "If I give you this money, will you buy some beer with it instead of dinner?"
"No, I had to stop drinking years ago," the homeless man replied.
"Will you use it to go fishing instead of buying food?" the man asked.
"No, I don't waste time fishing," the homeless man said. "I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive."
"Will you spend this on greens fees at a golf course instead of food?" the man asked.
"Are you NUTS!" replied the homeless man. "I haven't played golf in 20 years!"
"Will you spend the money on a woman in the red light district instead of food?" the man asked.
"What disease would I get for ten lousy bucks?" exclaimed the homeless man.
"Well," said the man, "I'm not going to give you the money. Instead, I'm going to take you home for a terrific dinner cooked by my wife."
The homeless man was astounded. "Won't your wife be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting."
The man replied, "That's okay. It's important for her to see what a man looks like after he has given up beer, fishing, golf, and sex."

Shoot the Fat Lady and Wallpaper the Whiteboy Blues

Some quickie fun items for the weekend:

• Quick video of a fat lady falling down - very nice!
  
• Some nice artsy wallpaper to download if you still do that sort of thing. I do.
  
• The new "shoot-first" law in Florida - Yee haw! Now why didn't Texas think of that?
  

Hey!...and my funtastic well-selling autobiography is now selling on Amazon. Does that make me a legit author now? Heck yes! I'd vote for me!

Just Another Dead Animal

driving to work this morning, i saw a dead deer hanging from a fence by her foot.... apparently she caught her foot in the barbed wire during the night and died... after passing her, feeling bad, i realized i hadn't seen her yesterday - and i usually spot all carcasses along RR 12 here in texas - so i turned around to go back and check...

...sure enough she was alive still... i could tell the minute i saw her eyes.

i pulled over next to her, she struggled and jumped some, trying vainly to pull free... she didn't have a lot of energy left... i could see she wasn't injured too bad, with a scratch on her free leg and her other hoof tightly entangled in the twisted barbed wire.

i jumped the fence to the other side and tried to pull the wire apart, but it was too tightly embedded into her foot... i found a rock and twisted the wire just enough. she pulled loose and quickly hobbled along the fence frightened and somehow jumped back over the same fence and ran into the field wobblingly from which she came.

she didn't look in too good of shape, but not in too bad of shape either. her leg looked like it was out of socket and stuck out awkwardly... hopefully it will pop back in. i think she'll be alright though.

i continued on to work... amazed again that so many animals die along this road. i have a t-shirt that jokingly says "Ranch Road 12 - Carrion the Tradition" with a vulture on it speading its wings.... there's lots of dead animals along this road and apparently people driving past this one all morning thought it was also just another dead animal along Ranch Road 12...

...an interesting response to the common notion, via the analogy of the blind men and the elephant, that God can be known from many different angles. The exception is the person that "sees" and thereby with authority makes declaritive statements about God. Of course this points to the uniqueness of Jesus with some reasonable validity.

Current Trends That Will Continue Indefinitely???

The Times's star columnist Thomas Friedman is making hay this season with his new book, The World is Flat, about the global economy. His book asserts that current trends will continue indefinitely - China will continue to manufacture ever more of America's household products, Americans will continue to enjoy cash-out home equity loans to buy plastic patio chairs made in China, WalMart will keep running its warehouse-on-wheels at a thumping great profit, and all impediments to global trade will be vanquished by telemarketing, computer technology, and confident corporate can-do spirits. I am tempted to ask how Friedman manages to type on a laptop with his head so far up his ass, but this blog is dedicated, above all, to a high-minded brand of politeness so we'll just say that he is not paying attention to a gathering global energy shitstorm that is going to change absolutely everything -- including global economic relations which pundits foolishly maintain to be permanent conditions of life.

[This cultural critique captured from James Howard Kunstler - author of the Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle - a thoughtful, well-written blog.]

How to Mess Up a Town

The knowledge necessary to build really great towns that people would delight to live and work in, was fully in place, was fully possessed by Americans in our grandparents' day. We have thrown it all into the garbage can.

Having studied good user-interface design in software, it's interesting to know that even towns can be designed with good (or bad) interface design. It's amazing how moronic engineers and designers can be!

For instance, a few years ago when the great mall incursion began, Saratoga Springs, New York decided to "fight back" by installing Victorianoid lampposts and street benches on Broadway. Only they made one slight mistake with the benches. They bolted them into the outside edge of the sidewalks facing toward traffic. This fundamental error in thinking that people sit outdoors to watch cars, not other people, illustrates the pathetic level of civic art as it is practiced here. To make matters worse, the original problem has become incorrectable. As recently as this April, members of the Downtown Business Association begged the Department of Public Works to move the benches around so they faced the sidewalk, and the DPW refused on the grounds that sitters might extend their legs and trip pedestrians!

Amazing! Be sure to read more on the subject.

Rachel Escobar - A Star is Born!

...the last I really remember Rachel Escobar she was a little girl in grade school with long curly hair down to her butt (her mom's a hair-dresser - best friends with my wife) and cute as a button. Now she's just gorgeous and is singing for the public and well loved I might add. Be sure and vote for her if time permits.... and listen to her video performance - it's very good!

Barcelona's Human Castles

...listening to the BBC yesterday coming home from work and heard about this old Catalan tradition called "Human Castles".... amazing... check out the pictures.

Texas Department of Public Safety - Courtesy, Service, Protection

...a close friend of mine ;) just discovered The Driver Responsibility Law (TRC Chapter 708). As he puts it....

...well basically, my license unbeknownst to me was suspended..... the officer informed me of this after he gave me the speeding ticket and before he handcuffed me and took me to county jail.... turns out a "surcharge" had been added to a ticket of mine 2 years ago... I paid the ticket ok, but they somehow weren't able to inform me of the new law with the surcharge which I was supposed to pay.



shorter version:

arrested for not paying a $250.00 tax added to an old ticket by a new law.

He spent a week being driven to work and to various DPS agency centers and $750 to get his license again. The Texas State trooper [named officer Bristow] also took his license after taking him to jail. He spent the day stripped down to his socks and basic clothes in a cement cell with several other "criminals" of various sorts. He still has to face trial and probably hire a lawyer to pay for his hideous crime of driving while his license was suspended. The DPS clerks said a notice was probably mailed to an old address which, by law, cannot be forwarded to his present address.



Crime fit the punishment? Courtesy, Service, Protection? hmmmmm....

Human Nature intensifies during Hard Times - for Good or Bad

'The truth is, a terrible tragedy like this brings out the best in most people, brings out the worst in some people', said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.



...reminds me of the philosopher Viktor Frankl who discovered this truth (?) after living through the Nazi concentration camps. Frankl ultimately believed that man is free to choose his own behavior and that extreme environments is what pushes him to make these choices.



...ultimately the history and habits of a man's choices reveals his character development - whether concentration camps or natural disasters.



...in times like these we get to see individuals for who they are. It is not necessarily a reflection of human nature itself or society in general, but only the freedoms and nature of the individuals themselves...



....so stop saying, "Wow, can you believe people would do that stuff ? [e.g. shoot at helicopters during rescuers]

Review of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount

...An interesting review on a book that describes how fundamentalism itself (Israeli, Muslim, and Christian) is a driving force (self-fulfilling?) that plays into the political decisions we make. Its good to note that religious zealousness is a necessary ingredient to consider better than we have, when making our political decisions.. (can you spell I-R-A-Q ?)

So you wanna own an American Bulldog?

I guess the problem with general descriptions of breeds is that the writers are always fans of the breed. Maybe descriptions of breeds should be written up by the people who actually work to get specific breeds adopted out.

American Bulldog Rescue has the fairest description of the breed that I've found yet. This is the kind of thought provoking simple essay that everyone should read before they buy a dog. Honest and clear and it made me feel guilty for not having worked with my bulldog more. Ouch... it touches home. A sign of good writing - from a person who cares about the actual dogs and has an incentive to tell you the truth.

The only thing they left out, was that my American Bulldog smells. I have to bathe her more than once a week, but I really don't know if that goes with the breed or not (but have a feeling it does.)

Left Behind?

I'm in a Sunday school class and we've decided to study the book of Revelations. Actually, we don't study the Bible, we just read it out look in class, taking panoramic views, and comment to each other applying our minor insights. It's a style that is refreshing compared to the pontificating all-knowing all-boring typical evangelical church classes I grew up with.



I've tried my best over the last 30 years (since I went to Bible College and studied the Bible with fervor) to avoid dealing with the popular notions of what is commonly called the "End Times" stuff. You know, the "Rapture", the "Second Coming", the "Anti-Christ", "666" and all that other queer apocalyptic rambling. This study is called Eschatology. I quit studying Eschatology in my early 20s when I decided that the popular interpretations were all wrong and in fact from any objective sense couldn't be found in the Bible as it was being taught to me.



Well obviously Tim LaHaye just can't die and go away. He's always been a menance to any evangelical trying to maintain dignity. I hate to dis him much - [actually, I like to dis him a lot - its just not very Christian], but his views have had way too much sway in popular Christian culture.



Saying all that to say this: Thanks to joshmag.com I've found that this debate is alive and well and everybody who considers themselves Christians hasn't swallowed it whole. Thank God! Consider this critique of LaHaye's pop eschatology:

This unrecognizable, heterodox puree includes chunks of John's apocalypse, mixed together willy-nilly with the stranger bits of Daniel, Ezekiel and the minor prophets and slices of St. Paul's meditations on death and Christ's warnings of judgment.

Sweet, huh?



Check this guy out if you have the vaguest idea what I'm talking about.

Driving Dead People in Iraq

My son, Brandon is okay. I was worried about him last week. He's driving an ambulance in Iraq now. Here's his last email he sent me which I thought was pretty interesting.

"geez i wish i had something GOOD to tell you but in all honesty if i started telling you the kind of news that goes on here with my daily work i'd be pretty depressing. i have been doing something different lately though, been driving the one and only ambulance here for the KBR medics, it's been crazy because i have to go on these medical runs like 5 times a day, usually it's a broken leg or injury or heat stroke/dehydration but we've had a few interesting ones. i had one military (AirForce girl) die on the way to the hospital from an overdose. it was weird seeing someone freshly dead but not with massive mutilation from burnings/explosions, it's like totally different. i don't want to be morbid but the first thing i thought of was night of the living dead. just like she could just sit right up and start walking. well that's all, hope that's not too weird but i'm sure mom has dealt with a lot of dead patients while working in a hopital. cheers"

Does Your Dog Howl at Night if you Die?

...my wife calls me at work and sounds all desparate. she says with this tear in her voice that she opened up her phone this morning and for some reason the date said it was January 1981. this freaked her out. I knew instantly why.



...my son was born Jan 1, 1981 - New Year's day... he is over in Iraq now working as a combat firefighter for Halliburton. I don't have good contact with him because of the obvious distance... I get emails from him every once in a while.... I've been emailing him all day and asking, "Are you all right?" .... hopefully he'll respond soon with his usual "Yes, I'm ok"... I haven't heard from him yet though.



I hope the universe isn't tied together with some kind of mystical cause and effect where weird things happen like a mother's electronic contraptions display weird dates because something somewhere else bad happens on the other side of the world... something as distant but as close as your own belly button.



It used to be an old belief that when a person died in their home at night, their dog knows it and will howl all night. My grandmother told me once.... says she's heard it herself a few times.... she also told me February was the worst month for her family and always feared it. She died in a February.



I keep checking my own clock on my phone and emailing Brandon.... he should be alright....

American Masters . Hank Williams | PBS

Watched the story of Hank Williams on American Masters the other night with my good friend and father-in-law Ike Lovvorn. (This Emmy award-winning series always has great stuff.) The particularly poignant moment for me on this night came from Ike, when at the end of the show he says, "It always makes me really sad when I hear the story of Hank Williams."

My mom used to play a lot of Hank Williams on our 6-foot long "Hi-Fi" record-player when she did her weekly house cleanings. She'd crank it up real loud so she could hear it over the vacuum cleaner roar.... And then she'd sing all-silly-like at the top of her lungs along with the songs. I think the cheatin' songs had a special meaning to her. I guess the story of Hank tugged at the heart of my father-in-law also. He kind of sniffled when he mentioned to me how Hank's story made him sad.

Building a Cabin with a Bowie Knife

I've been building a cabin with a Bowie knife. Really I've been using a chainsaw and a hammer and nails too. Not much more than that though it seems. It's been fun but very hard. I should've blogged the whole series of events, from how to get the parts and planning the structure to buying the parts (cutting down the trees, I really mean) and hammering it all together. But, I've been too tired everyday to think about blogging it all too. The most amazing part for me has been how expensive it is to just drink water and then to poop and pee. I tried digging a well myself and then gave up after one hour of pick-axe work, a two foot pile of rocks, and six inches deep of a "well".... I apparently live on all rocks.... (I really thought that, "Hey, this ground is moist here, maybe I can dig a little and find a spring.... heck, how'd they do it in the old days?"
I thought wrong.

I ended up paying $8,000 for a big truck to come in and drill straight down 300 feet and install a pump and a little tank.

Then someone had to rocksaw another 300 feet across the property just to lay the pipe to get the water from the well to the cabin.

To actually be able to "go to the bathroom" in anything close to a civilized manner is also very expensive. (Believe me, I tried building an "out-house" and my wife threw a fit. I also looked into the humanure concept and composting your own waste. But pooping and peeing into a bucket and covering it up with sawdust to later take outside to dump into a pile, just had a certain barrier of cultural overcoming that I couldn't bring myself to conquer.) A septic system is a big deal and it costs me another $9,000.

Then you've got to put it altogether. That takes another $500 worth of pvc pipe and valving and lots of hard, hard labor. My wife found the toilet at a Good-Will store for only one dollar (yes, that's right - $1.00 ! We were very excited about that.)
So, just getting water and then to excrete and rid myself of waste-water has cost me $17,500. It's just unbelieveable, that as incredible as it might sound, when you own your own land, you still can't even START to survive without taking out a major loan from a bank!
So now I can poop and pee and drink water. And I owe the bank. I still have to build my shelter. I have a bowie knife. I'm working on that part still.

Grizzly Man

I'm looking forward to seeing this movie of a questionably sane young man who goes out to live with grizzly bears, like one of them - Grizzly Man.

I've heard this guy and his wife were eaten alive by grizzlies and the video camera was running but the lens was still on... but the sounds recorded were said to be horrifying beyond endurance.... I guess they are not releasing it to the public.

The trailer hints at this but doesn't explore it.

Muslims against Human Rights and Democracy?

So, let me get this straight.... our system of freedom allows them to train and develop their ideas to completely undermine us here in America and other free countries? What's wrong with this picture?



And in case you think for a minute that people everywhere actually value the same basic freedoms that we in America value (Hello, Bush?), then consider this call to arms from the Islamic book, "The American Campaign to Suppress Islam":



"It is time to distinguish Truth from Falsehood as clear and distinct as

life is from death. On one side, the side of Falsehood - are America, the

KaafirWest, and your rulers and their supporters which includes the

politicians, thinkers, economists, people of the media, and others

allured by Capitalism and seduced by its way of life, together with

those who call for democracy, pluralism, human rights, and free market

policies. And on the other side, the side of the Truth - are the aware and

sincere carriers of the Islamic Da'wah and those who follow them

from among the Muslim Ummah who adhere to their Deen."



Yes, that's right - at least this one Islamic author is AGAINST Democracy and Human Rights and enjoins all Muslims to be also! Read 'em and weep people.

I don't think America has a campaign to wipe out Islam - but maybe it should.

I don't think America has a campaign to wipe out Islam - but maybe it should.



Maybe I am totally clueless or have only been reading extremist Islam materials, but if what I've been reading is anywhere near the center of Islamic thought, then America is deluding itself if it thinks peaceful coexistence with Muslims is possible. By their own publications, non-Muslims seem to be only worthy of death and there is no tolerance whatsoever of other peoples or other religions.



The Christian God that I know of doesn't seem to be the same Allah fellow that I've been reading quotes from out of the Koran. This Allah and his "messenger" (Mohammed) seem totalitarian, absolute and intolerably nuts if you ask me.



If there's a God in heaven that's good, it ain't the same God as this Allah of Islam.



I'm sure America isn't fighting Islam, but rest assured Islam is fighting America.

Bin Laden's Fatwa

After reading some of Josh's blog, I realized I didn't know what a "fatwa" was. I looked it up and found it is an Islamic declarative legal curse upon something or someone. Salmon Rushdie had a fatwa placed on him for writing "The Satanic Verses" and Bin laden has made a fatwa against America, Israel, and against as he puts it - "people of the cross."

Wow! Powerful and ugly stuff. This guy really is evil and seriously wants to incite young Islamic men to kill as many Americans as possible. Scares me. So exactly why should all Americans be put to death? Don't quite get it still?

Headlines: All Spammers Go to Hell

I have a well-intentioned, not so web-savy, cousin of my wife's that likes to mass email all her relatives. She'll headline something like, "New Type of Cancer Discovered" and then forward a copy of some hyped-up worrisome article to about 100 of her friends and family. She is very religious, sheltered and stubborn.



Yesterday, I got one of these emails. I wrote her back and told her spamming was the unpardonable sin, and that she was going to hell for doing so. (I was joking of course.)



She emailed me back today and informed me that this article was very important and something my wife should be aware of. (Like awareness is something that can be captured by email.) Was this good-intentioned spam or just cheap love? Something to one make the sender feel like they're doing good, when in reality they're doing nothing at best - being rude, self-deceptive and clogging email at worst - certainly not helping anyone.



It reminds me of where James writes to the early church:



"If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled'; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?"



It's easy to offer up words of advise of "Be clothed and fed." It's akin to shouting at a man in the unemployment line, "Get a job."



The ignorant but good-intentioned queen - Marie Antoinette, when told that the people were out of bread to eat replied, "Then let them eat cake!"



The people revolted and cut off her head for such naiviete.



Maybe spammers really do go to hell.

Writing a proper query...

I came to me desktop this morning (Monday) to find my "note to self" on how to start where I left off Friday (I'm a software programmer by trade). My note was:



// ***************************************

// build sql string and insert here

// ***************************************



which essentially means "do all the proper thinking to frame the question into understandable syntax". And I realize that this is not what I'm good at - posing the question well. If I could do that I could get good answers.



It seems life for me has just been one long attempt to just get the question right. Somehow naively, I'm convinced that if I can just get the question right, then I can get the answers to everything I want to know and understand - about God, the universe, our histories, our destinies and the meanings of life.



Gee, am I a nit-wit or what?



Instead of programming (this stupid computer), I go and read some of Josh's great blogging with

links to depressing articles about how creative people we admire are really just 8th grade educated automatons of idiotic cults.



Again, I'm almost convinced that I may never be able to phrase up the questions properly - and even worse - that it probably doesn't matter.



Does anybody out there know how to write a proper query?

Zapping Myself and Buying Groceries with Famous People

I've got my copper wires and gadetry set-up like the lady in the blog entry below described. This is supposed to zap internal parasites in my body and cleanse my liver. The author says I'll poop out these lumpy green deposits. I hope this works so I can get back to drinking beer again. I'll let you know how it all comes out.

Oh, by the way, I was standing in line at the grocery store the other day and low and behold standing next to me was Robert Earl Keen, the Texas famed singer-songwriter. He was shuffling around with a People magazine (which he bought) trying not to get noticed. I had to have a price check on my dozen limes I was picking up for Adena to brew up margaritas so I let him go ahead of me so I could chit-chat.

I mentioned to him what I was doing, kind of happy that my evening was going to be fun. As he put down his few groceries which included a bundle of "instant" fireplace logs (I could see he was in for a dull evening) he turned to me and in a kinda sad poetic voice just murmured, "Yeah .... the things we do. The things we do."

Let's Rewrite History: "Abraham Lincoln was just another evil white rascist"

I was reading through the African-American magazine Ebony the other day (while sitting in my Spanish-speaking-only barber shop waiting to get a haircut.) I came across a full page advertisement declaring that the secret racism of Abraham Lincoln is now revealed in the book Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream!



The remainder of the claims in the ad were blatantly offensive to me (a white guy from Illinois, a history buff, and an admirer of Lincoln). The claims in fact were slanderous, stupid and an obvious attempt to rewrite history and all the known facts about Abe Lincoln.



After googling this book though, I found several reviews giving this book undue respect.



I found one reasonable review - "Forced into Glory" Book Review by Edward Steers, Jr. that addresses the books more obvious political, not historical, agenda.



I'm just amazed at how revisionist history like this can be popularized and then presented in full-page magazines geared towards blacks only under the disguise of scholarly research. Its has the full intention of only causing anger, hatred, and resentment.



Lincoln himself was an amazing non-racist human being and suffered more pain and agony over his fight against the evils of slavery than most any of us today could dare imagine. It's a real shame and an embarassment to me that a present day black author would try to systematically dismantle Lincoln's character to the black American populace today.

America Was Not Founded Upon Christianity

My son, who's presently working in Bagdad, sent me a good, honest article, refuting the false notion that America was founded by Christians upon Christian precepts - of which I agree with (and already knew perfectly well).



Great quotes by Ben Franklin: "I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped." and "As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see."



Of course these were very scientific men from the "age of Enlightenment" and they did not generally believe in the divinity of Jesus or the miracles in the Bible. In the normal sense of the word they were not "Christians", but they were educated men who believed generally in a life after death and a supreme being who created the universe.



Even Voltaire concludes, "Well, to what dogma do all minds agree? To the worship of a God, and to honesty. All the philosophers of the world who have had a religion have said in all ages: 'There is a God, and one must be just.'"



George Bush probably is a true believer of the more fundamentalist versions of Christianity, but I think he is mindfully just as he seeks freedoms for "muslims, infidels, christians, and jews" like the founding fathers themselves did.



I think Bush might agree hand-in-hand with Jefferson who gave his reason for going to church as, "...no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example."



(I thought it most interesting to find though that the "Under God" in the pledge of allegience wasn't implemented till the McCarthy era of the '50s.)



Thanks for the article, Brandon.

The Cure For All Diseases

The Cure For All Diseases

"Electricity can now be used to kill bacteria, viruses and parasites in minutes, not days or weeks as antibiotics require.

If you have been suffering from a chronic infection or have cancer, or AIDS, learn to build the electronic device that will stop it immediately. It is safe and without side effects and does not interfere with any treatment you are now on."

Now this is what I'm talking about.... I'm gonna hook myself up to a couple of batteries and shock the bujeebees outta myself... that oughta kill somethin' bad inside of me...

This online book really is facinating... like what Walker Percy said about Catholicism, "It's just crazy enough, it might be true." I am goin' try this as soon as I can get the copper and the batteries.

Cecil Peel - American explorer, 1915-2005

I was rummaging through some old newspaper clippings during one of my wife's many vintage items collection sprees back in the dusty hills of Kendall County in a small run-down home that was hosting this particular garage sale. I came across a dusty, yellowed hand-written eight pages of notebook paper entombed in a Ziploc baggy hidden between the also dusty 50's and 60's 'Old West' and 'True Detective' pulp magazines lying in a corner amongst the other dusty and abandoned books in this nearly abandoned home - or storage shed - I couldn't tell which.



The pages began with, "I was born in Dripping Springs, Texas in 1915."



I bought the manuscript along with some books and the pulp magazines for $2.50. My wife bought a vintage '50s couch for $5 which we hauled back to our barn in Wimberley, Texas.



After reading this manuscript, I went back to the garage sale and asked for a picture of the now deceased man who used to live here - who had owned these books, and had written his life's tale of important events, and who now was having his few belongings sold by neighbors and purchased by strangers passing through like myself.



Cecil Peel traveled the world. Cecil Peel loved archeology. Cecil Peel once got lost in the Saudi Arabian desert and nearly died. Cecil Peel criss-crossed much of the United States, building pipelines while searching for pre-historic sites. Cecil Peel, as a child, saw his first automobile and paved road from his bed in the back of a covered wagon while en route with his family to Oklahoma to bury his grandfather in 1922.



Cecil Peel once had an article written about him by a popular columnist in the San Antonio Express-News with a picture featuring him in his swanky cowboy hat and jeans. Cecil Peel was a bit of a celebrity - at least for a while.



I am amazed that we die. I am amazed that we die, and so easily return to dust. Us, our belongings, our memories so easily sit in the dusty corner of a dusty house and are discarded or bought - for $2.50.



I am amazed. And I wonder and am forced to accept, that yes, my days too will end like this.



God rest your soul, Cecil Peel.