Alabama
Jihad

I have long tried to stay out of the Alabama / Auburn rivalry because I don't like messing with other people's religion.

(Pauses a beat.)

"Al from Dadeville" called in to the Paul Finebaum show on Jan 27, bragging about his act of fannjish terrorism:

"OK, let me tell you what I did the weekend after the Iron Bowl. I went to Auburn, Alabama, because I live 30 miles away and I poisoned the two Toomer's trees. I put Spike80DF in 'em. ... They're not dead yet, but they definitely will die."

Ahhhhhhhhh, sportsmanship.

The rivalry between the two schools has been bitter, but an egregious act of vandalism like this is unacceptable in any sense. "So what?" you churlishly retort, "It's just a coupla trees."

Yes a couple of 130-year-old oaks that are a community treasure. The trees are regularly mulched with toilet paper. The locals roll the trees mightily after Auburn wins. They are beautiful landmarks, especially when not so festooned.

Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr., 62, of Dadeville, AL, is the miscreant "Al" who poisoned the trees. One defense attorney has already recused himself from the case. This will be interesting.

Mammoth effort is being put forth to rehabilitate the toxic site and save the oaks, Perhaps Toomer's Corner will be blessed with the trees for a long time to come.

"Tide for Toomers" is a Facebook page put up by Crimson Tide fans who deplore this senseless act, and who are raising money toward the effort to save the oaks.

The Plumbline's
BLACK HISTORY MONTH VIGNETTE

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
Frederick Douglass

But was there EVER a question?

Socio-Sexual Hierarchy Quiz

My Results:

Sigma

You don't give a damn. You are off doing your own thing, with or without anyone's approval. You radiate cool and intrigue, and women find you intensely interesting, despite you not trying or noticing. You don't go to parties or social gatherings, but if you do, you're usually with a friend and a gorgeous woman you brought. You're the lone wolf of the hierarchy, almost as attractive as Alphas. You shun leadership in favor of getting the hell away from everyone.

Vidad and Mr. McLeod may giggle as appropriate.

SO, the Dread Dormomoo and I were talking, herself in the throes of the viral orgy, having unspeakable things done to her cellular integrity: aches, fever, chills, do the math. She is still clearer-thinking than I on my best days. The business of Ron Paul's straw-poll win at CPAC came up, and Fox's love affair with Anyone-But-Paul. The big-big-BIG news apparently is that Mitt Romney came in second, that meaning in anybody's lexicon that he lost .

The question of the day is, If a polygynous Mormon were to make it to the White House (and yes, I know it would take an event equivalent to an asteroid strike -read Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer - for this to happen) who would be First Lady? Or First Sister-Wife?

Perhaps the fever has affected her summat.

"Herbalife Reviews -- 98% Of Herbalife Reps Get Burned Discover Why. Get the Free Report"

Why?

Because it's an MLM, THAT'S why.

ATTABOY, HOSNI!

Egypt's President Mubarak has gotten his back up.

"I have to responded to your calls, but I am also embarrassed and I will not listen to any foreign interventions or dictations, regardless of their sources."

He is responding to things like this from President Obama:

"Third, we have spoken out on behalf of the need for change. After his speech tonight, I spoke directly to President Mubarak. He recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and that a change must take place. Indeed, all of us who are privileged to serve in positions of political power do so at the will of our people. Through thousands of years, Egypt has known many moments of transformation. The voices of the Egyptian people tell us that this is one of those moments; this is one of those times.
Now, it is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders. Only the Egyptian people can do that. What is clear -- and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak -- is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now."

It is NOT our business to instruct another Head of State in what to do, and President Obama is a wiseguy who knows better than everyone else What To Do, and he is not shy about letting them know. Barack Obama is "That Guy". Mubarak clearly did not appreciate it. Silly man.
(Incidentally, I do not know where this "brutal dictator" business is coming from. He was never on the "Axis of Evil" radarmotron to my knowledge.)
Mubarak is a Middle-Eastern ruler. Period. He does not fit our sanitised Western mold of What a President Should Look Like. He is no Reagan, but neither does he appear to be a Saddam Hussein. I am open to correction on this, but this whole Egypt thing appears to be straight from the box. This is an organised flash crowd.
I dunno, but I am of Tevyesque mind where Egypt is concerned. The Pragmatic Aardvark says that Mubarak is our and Israel's ally. The current regime is stable, at least by Middle-Eastern standards. On the other hand, the PEEE-PUL are raging and want him out, Democracy uber alles! On the other hand, the whole thing seems a ready-made, instant revolution, just-add-water. On the other hand, look at you. A baby and a sewing machine. You're a person.
There is no other hand.
I do not harbor end-timey-wimey thoughts. My understanding of Revelation, and the gospels (especially the Matthew 23 & 24) is historical, in that I believe the historical church's understanding that Jesus was speaking of things SOON to come to pass, during that time period. I do NOT follow the New York Times bestseller version. That was developed by John Darby early in the 1800s, and popularised by C.I.Scofield (the P.T.Barnum of eschatological humbuggery) in the early 1900s. That said, Israel is important to us in the region, not as The Budded Figtree, but as a strategic ally. Egypt is a mutual ally, at least until the Muslim Brotherhood gains control. You know, kinda like Iran in 1979. THAT went well.

I am moving into G.R.O. mode: "Get Rid Of"; finding my inner Buddhist , or at least my inner Don Aslett. (Why is it that the really useful people with good ideas seem to be Mormon nowadays?)

I am going through my junk roo...er, office and Throwing Things Away. I felt a heady sense of accomplishment as I found a stack of DVD-ROM disks, and started tossing them. Dark Age of Camelot free trial disks. For them wot knows, DAOC trials were the gamer equivalent of those ubiquitous AOL "FREE TRIAL!!!" disks. Anyway, they are bound for the dustbin, now.

Must start looking for other junk of which to divest myself. I am afflicted with the "but I might need one of those one day" mindset, and so find it difficult to G.R.O. stuff. I didn't go through the Great Depression, but I was raised by some who did, hence my problem. You know those little bits of PVC coated wire that power cords and suchlike come bound with to keep 'em neat in their packaging? I find little outcroppings of them in drawers, my rationale being: I always lose the twist-tie from the bread, and these are better than the paper-and-wire ones that come on the bread." Sadly, these are in my office drawer, four miles from my kitchen where my bread resides.

No, I do not have towering stacks of newspapers stored Babelesque about my house.

My office is done up in a charming melange of "Childhood Toys", "Space-Age Bachelor Pad", and "Industrial Mayhem", with a couple of David Goodman's paintings thrown in for good measure.

Yes, I own TWO Goodmans!

So, I am trying to lose a ton of stuff, to streamline my life. Wish me Godspeed, or Luck, or Qapla', whatever you are comfortable with, and if you know someone with a Bobcat for rent cheap, let me know, please!

This may be a re-visitation, but in a time when the "why" of someone's actions may be more important than the actions themselves (think "hate crimes"), Christians are again given the nasty end of the stick.

I pause to allow you to pick your jaw up from the floor.

One of the most annoying things the True Believers do is share, or witness, or evangelise. (Remember, evangel means "good news") The militant atheist crowd, as well as the "just want to be left alone" crowd really militate against this hateful practise of telling them about Jesus. They see it as judgmental, that they are being told they are bad people who are going to hell.

Admittedly, there are some who take it upon themselves to punch someone's ticket, but the scriptures themselves do not offer that as part of the job description. We may speak as far as the gospel does...no farther. Thus-and-so will keep you out of the Kingdom of God. It is up to the hearer to make the connexion. One must recognise peril to recognise the need for rescue.

Since the motive is more important than the action in today's enlightened view, please consider this: is it a bother to you for a flagman to stop you to warn of the bridge being out? Do you malign his callous disregard for your time schedule? The reasonable person sees through to motive: "I don't want you and your family to die at the bottom of the gorge.". Likewise the coworker, friend, family member, or artless stranger who wishes to tell you about the gospel. This person does so with the highest motive: concern for your well-being. He sees you in spiritual peril (Jesus said "No-one comes to the Father except through me".), and wants to throw you a life-ring. Do you argue with the lifeguard who is pulling you to shore?

You may not believe at all, or you may be a lifelong neo-Zoroastrian, but when an unsophisticated evangelist sees you as his personal mission, please understand that he is doing it out of love, out of a true desire to do you good.

Motive IS important.

Saw the > AIDS ad on telly. It is apparently not on YouTube. I'm glad they are Breaking the Silence, since no-one has talked about this at all for close-on to 35 years.

io9 had a serious article on the Internet "Kill Switch" being proposed in Washington. I HAD to respond to a guy named "wopper" in the comments. We may hear more from Cyber Ben Franklin.

"So maybe I am alone on this but wouldn't a kill switch be a good idea in the event of a massive internet offensive?" --wopper
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"Those who trade internet freedom for internet security deserve neither internet nor freedom." -- Cyborg Ben Franklin

Seriously, placing a kill switch in the hands of any one man (or party) is a recipe for major trouble. Ask yourself: "Would I want a President of The Other Party to have this power?"

The relative freedom of the Internet is an enormous blessing, and presents danger to the alleged defenders of Free Speech on the leftward end of the spectrum. (I admit that there is 'Net opposition in the Right as well, but that mainly involves moral turpitude.)

Were I you, I would find suspect and resist ANY legislation re: the Internet, period. Washington does not need to "protect" the Series of Tubes.

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I should be coating screens, but I have oter stuff going on in my head. I keep hearing Dave Ramsey promos where he is talking about the New Sin on the Block: Financial Infidelity. It wearies me. Let's come up with yet ANOTHER reason to end a marriage. It's like the tiresome fussing about porn as a a reason for divorce. (I recognise that this is a ticklish subject, and that the "committing adultery in one's heart" issue is arguable at some levels - do you divorce your hubby for leafing through a Playboy, or are we talking hundreds of dollars a month in internet porn and cybersex?) My point is that the marriage covenant (who knows what THAT means anymore?) is potent, and requires overt breaking to annul. The modern attitude appears to be one of Humpty Dumptifying the concept of adultery ("when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean...") with all manner of sub-infractions so that I may wiggle out of my marriage for virtually any reason, just so I couch it in the proper terms.

Sound another death-knell for marriage.

There is too much to write about. I cannot focus. Egypt is boiling, and our President-in-Chief is demanding (!) that Mubarak turn on the Intarwebs and let Democracy flow as rivers of water. I don't know what plagues our Moses-in-Chief will threaten the Egyptian leader with;;;perhaps a case of worms.

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My good friend and NASA worker Mark got married to-day. The Dread Dormomoo and I went to the nuptials. Kasey Harbin officiated, even with a gamy leg. It was a huge blessing, even if it was an ALABAMA-themed reception. The groom's cake was a red-velvet cake with white fondant icing, with a black houndstooth pattern. Yep, it was a Bear Bryant's Hat cake. The food consisted of tailgating-style noshes: chili, sliced beef, ham, wings, the obligatory plates of veg and fruits. DEEE-lish.

Musn't forget the sausage balls, pigs-in-a-blanket, cocktail weenies wrapped-in-bacon-and-then-fried, and a tureen of stuffed baked potato soup.

Did I say that the ceremony was nice, too?

May Mark and Pam have an awesomely blessed marriage.
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Here is the link to MobiCon, where I will be the Fan Guest-of-Honor. I have interesting company.

Your Aardvark began going to SF conventions in 1980. The Dread Dormomoo and I packed up shirts, paints, airbrushes other fannish oddments and her Craftsman air compressor (the one that sounded like a Harley) into our Monza station wagon, and headed to PhilCon, where she painted shirts ranging from unicorns to a portrait of Johnny Mathis.

Thus began 31 years of huckstering. (That is a story in itself. The dealers at SF cons originally sold books, fanzines, and doodads to pay their expenses at the con. They were called "hucksters". This changed to "dealers" sometime in the '80s, but with "Just Say No" and other cultural pressures, it became more acceptable to call them "merchants" or "vendors" or "exhibitors".)

I am a huckster.

31 years has yielded the Fan Guest of Honor. In May 2001, I had the pleasure of being Dealer Guest of Honor at Deep South Con 39/Tenacity 1 in Birmingham, AL. You have to understand that I understand that this honor plus $5 will yield me a really good coffee at Starbucks, but I am gonna play this up for all it's worth. I have asked the con chair for a Perrier fountain. (He's a friend, and knows I'm being a jerk.) The DD and I will be going to the con, and I will have a special Warhol-esque t-shirt of my phiz to throw out willy-nilly.
This is gonna be fun. I will get to participate in panel discussions, so YAAAAAY!, I will get to Talk to a Group.

More to come.

A Cogent Quote

"(C)ivilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed." -- Sir Winston Churchill

For all the fuss about the Pedo Bear internet meme on regional news outlets, I should think that this front-page Christmas photo from our local paper should give someone pause.

The President was positively "pastoral" in his speech at the Tucson Funeral Pep Rally. He spread the unguents of healing as well as might any priest. Maybe he picked up something other than a hatred of historic America during his tenure as a member of Jeremiah Wright's congregation.

Or perhaps not, for he sets us on a national course to the United States of Lisa Frank.
Referring to nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, President Obama said:

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

Christina was born on 9/11/01, and has had the Burden of the New Normal on her small shoulders ever since. She has borne it well, being:

an A student, a dancer, a gymnast, and a swimmer. She often proclaimed that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the major leagues, and as the only girl on her Little League team, no one put it past her. She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age, and would remind her mother, "We are so blessed. We have the best life." And she'd pay those blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children who were less fortunate.

Quite the achiever, but she was still only nine.Unless she was a former-day Helen America

It is a terrible thing to die so young, filled with such promise, such purpose. I can only assume that alongside the drive to excel, excel, was a nine-year-old little girl who liked unicorns and rainbows. That would best describe the course our President has charted for the nation ("I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it."). President Obama, who cannot get that our nation is a Republic (but then, neither can Hannity and his ilk), wishes to steer us to the vision of a nine-year-old, a vision of softball and unicorns and rainbows.

Perhaps, though, that is a better course than the one he has taken up 'til now. On the other hand, the Children's Crusade didn't fare too well. Then again, with the wide-eyed credulity of the Body Politic, buying into Bailouts and Democracy and The Fed, oh, my!, maybe the course has not veered much at all. America may well be becalmed in the doldrums of a nine-year-old's political fantasy.

Oooooooooooh...Lookit the Pegasus!

Art by Basil Wolverton


I just heard that phrase again, in the context of the terrible Arizona massacre: "the political conversation. I am amused beyond giggles at the idea of a "conversation" on the political scene, unless you consider two people shouting at each other simultaneously to be a conversation. One side is not listening to the other, period. One side is loudly reading a reasoned treatise, and the other is shouting LA-LA-LA-LA with fingers firmly in their ears. No communication, just blather.

The left-liberal-Progressive crowd are FUH-FUH-FUH-ing about the need to limit political debate and polemical opinion in the name of civility. Let's abridge God-granted civil rights in the name of Nice! While we are at it, let's limit gun ownership by the law-abiding because a sad, mind-twisted idealogue nut shot up a political rally. (His fondness for The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf places him firmly on the Left end of the political spectrum.) Never ones to let a good crisis go to waste, they reliably trot out the same old nostrums for problems that don't exist, and which would not solve them if they did.

The renewed bleating for the re-institution of the Fairness Doctrine is equally feckless. During the heyday of Fairness on the airways, assassins had their heyday as well: JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lennon, Lee Harvey Oswald, attempts on Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. Fairness is not conducive to civility, as fairness is as elusive as the tooth fairy or Lucky the Leprechaun. Despite its being a liberal virtue, the enforcing of fairness no more solves differences of opinion than forced desegregation made white rednecks invite blacks to Sunday dinner. It is an old point here, but a law or regulation will not change my heart. It MAY affect my behavior, but maybe not. The kindergarten whining about Fairness is a dodge, an excuse to limit opposing points-of-view. If (true) conservatives gain ascendancy in 2012, may they take a strictly Constitutional view of speech and opinion. To do otherwise will give the lie to their ID.

The Dread Dormomoo made Dirty Snowcream. I guess it would be a favorite in Brooklyn with the slush and all.

Nawwww...it's made with some cold coffee. Tastes like an Italian gelato, only crunchy!

We start with a bowl, with milk in the bottom. We shall add snow from the bowl on the table.


















But first, some magical crystalline heaven. Pure cane sugar.



















We'll stir it all together with some vanilla extract.














Next you stir in snow, a cup at a time to get the mixture right.

How do you know? You just will.







Et voila! Snow cream!
You can almost taste the Cesium-137.

Welcome to winter in North Alabamastan! This is the Dread Dormomoo's little water feature out front of Chez 'Vark. We are enjoying an amazing snow here.






This is the Aardvan. The two dimples on top are are the two
uber-sized bowls that I put on top to catch snow. They have all-but-vanished, now. Why would we want to collect snow? To measure the effects of global warming? To better moisturise my face, and maintain its youthful glow?

No. We want to make:











We are going to make that venerable confection: SNOW CREAM. You know, milk, sugar, vanilla, stirred into snow. When I was a kid, they warned us not to eat snow. The color did not matter, Atomic fallout did. The atomic tests had spread fallout across the winds, and it apparently preferred to pinwheel down to ground level attached to snowflakes.

Well, it's been a LONG time since the last atomic tests (checks his watch), and it is time to do this, but after the sun rises. This is craziness outside. Beautiful, beautiful craziness. That you can make snow cream out of.

I dream of Vo-ox in the fuzzy re-ed suit.

I have indulged in blog-reading for too long. It is starting to take a toll on my "Zs".
Your Aardvark dreamed that he was invited to Vox Day's winter retreat for Christmas.
The feel of the dream was that it was in Switzerland, where I arrived at a down-at-the-heels chalet that looked more like a renovated double-wide, with unkempt trees very close to the house. Vox greeted me with joy, and and came across more like John Kricfalusi than the Italian-loafered imbiber of umbrella-festooned drinks. Spacebunny was slender and brunette, and there was an indeterminate number of children around. About this time, I began to get the impression that I was there less as a Christmas guest, and more as an extra, because I was introduced to his uncle, who was very clearly Ben Stein. This was having every appearance of being an economics holiday special, Rudolph's Red-Ink Christmas or summat. There was a fair amount of unmemorable homina-homina, but five things stand out: 1) Vox had a tendency to spontaneously break out in song. 2) Someone broke into the house, and Grinchily stole the Christmas tree, leaving a trail of ornaments down the front path. I got out of bed, went downstairs and looked out of the front window to see Vox, SB, and the indeterminate number of children hurriedly picking up the ornaments from the snow, and wearing Santa / Santa's elvish outfits. When they realized that someone was watching them, they scurried and hid under an evergreen. 3) While I was looking at painted wooden toys under the table, Vox popped up and asked if I wanted to call home with Skype. He rummaged through the toys and pulled out a cell phone apparently built from yellow and clear LEGOs, with an LCD display. 4) At no time did Ben Stein say "Wo-o-o-o-o-w" or "Buellllerrr". 5) There were no Viszlas in evidence.

Very odd, very memorable. Oh. Vox never broke out a flaming sword, either.

Merry Christmas, to all my Reader!

It is a good day, a Classic Christmas Day, a snowy Christmas day, the air crisp and chill, and redolent with the aroma of frying turkey once you get inside.All the kinder are here for the celebration and the quaffing and the opening. If the coming of Christ had only opened the door for this day, it would almost be enough!

It makes the angst of the previous month worth it.

Here is a Newsmax headline:

As America Celebrates Christmas, Rev. Franklin Graham Says Secular 'War' Rages Against Christians

In time past, this would have sent me to the ramparts brandishing a broken Welch's bottle to support my fellow believers, but I started thinking about this whilst in the shower. A "secular war against Christians"? What precisely is preacher Graham expecting? Jesus gave us a clew when He said ""Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." (Mt. 10:24) He did not come opening the door for our eligibility for Nobel prizes, nor even the Key to the City. We should not expect the accolades of a contrary public, though our behavior and good works should merit them. As a Christian, you should not expect to rank in the public eye up there with the fireman who rescues Li'l Judy's kitty from the elm tree. Our message is one of division, not of amity with the world. The world does not appreciate the message of the cross. It barely tolerates the story of the Little Baby Jesus in the manger with the oxen and the sheep and the donkey and the kitty and all the fuzzy puppies, yet the mark of that Birth is shown across the world, as even pagan cultures have Christmas celebrations. Granted, they are St. Nick heavy, but in all the trappings, the manger scene shines forth. The Taliban even gets in on it:

"I’ve even seen the Taliban catch the Christmas spirit. In Afghanistan in December 2001, a bearded gang of Taliban fighters, all devout Muslims, emerged from Al Qaeda’s lair in the Tora Bora Mountains. They were dragging a Christmas tree for us journalists. If these Kalashnikov-toting Afghan fighters could bring us a Christmas tree, why can’t I wish you a Merry Christmas?
Walter Rodgers, a former senior international correspondent for CNN, writes a biweekly column." (The whole story is here: well worth the reading)

It is contradictory in its nature that a world so touched by a celebration of Jesus' birth should be so offended by His Death, but there it is, and Jesus said it would be so. In one sense America has been a Christian nation, and built on a Christian consensus, and biblical sensibilities. On the other hand, our president is correct: we are no longer.

Christians needs to get on the stick and do their job of making disciples, rather than haunting call-in shows, whining and expecting what Our Founder said we would not get.

Art By sahua

Being raised nominally Presbyterian (and by nominally, I mean I was not even taught TULIP!), I did catch a good understanding of Total Depravity. I have never had a sanguine attitude about the Innate Goodness of Mankind. Raising four wonderful children with my wonderful Dread Dormomoo, I had proof that kids do not have to be taught to be...not good.

There is no reason for the coming of Messiah otherwise.

So last night I went to the shop to check that things were turned off, when what to my wondering eyes did appear...

two broken windows. Upstairs windows. Windows that required effort to break. That brings the total to four the windows that the local sons of Belial have thrown rocks through. It's not like the Granville House in "It's a Wonderful Life", with a long heritage of snaggly windows thanks to kids tossing rocks and making wishes. Our building is clearly a business location, not an abandoned wreck. Sigh. I fully expect people to do bad things betimes, but I do not understand the why. Why break windows in a building not-your-own, for apparently no good reason.

"Oh, no! That window is on fire!! Maybe we can put it out with rocks!!!"

Merry Christmas to me.

My mood is firmly entrenched in Code Black. I have to buy surveillance cameras, now.
I have to spend money that I cannot comfortably spend to nanny the little darlings, and perhaps bring them to book.

Sometimes I can relate to Mr. Scrooge the Former.

Have yourself an indie little Christmas...

Well, the Christmas ads just keep on comin', hit after hit, and, with the exception of the Hyundai car ad performed by Pomplamoose, they are utterly dreadful.

Hum

flippin'

BUG!

What to do, what to do? After a fallow year of blogging, I enter a positively tapioca Christmas season. Aside from a Pennsylvania town knuckling under to a single whiner and removing a Nativity scene, it's pretty much bupkis.

We have been wallowing in classic Christmas schmaltz here at Chez 'Vark. Disney holiday shorts, longer "classic" Christmas shows like "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" by Rankin/Bass, done in Animagic, a sort of 3-D stop-motion anime. It is based on a story by OZ-smith L.Frank Baum, and effectively removes Santa from the Christian hagiography, but stylishly. I do question the Desirability of proclaiming a first-run Christmas cartoon "a new Christmas Classic!", especially one that is done in Flash. I was privileged to see the first showing of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on CBS in 1965, and that is well and truly a classic. Oh, wait...this is the third year "A Cranberry Christmas" has been shown. I had never heard of it, and I'm Mr.Christmas around here. It's sponsored by Ocean Spray. Hmmmmmmm...I smell a conspiracy, a tart maroon conspiracy with tiny seeds. I bet Soros is involved, too.

I gotta drag out "It's a Wonderful Life", the Acme of Capra-corn (and I say that with the utmost respect for Frank Capra). One of the high points of Batman-the Animated Series back in the '90s wa the episode "Christmas With the Joker". Robin is trying to talk Batman into chilling over the movie on Christmas Eve, and is shocked to learn that his mentor has never seen the film. "I never could get past the title." sez Bats.

A pet peeve (should that be "companion peeve"?) of mine is kidifying "Christmas". Chrissums, like that. My latest is done by the estimable Tim and Eric and their "Chrimbus" substravaganza. I have nought but disdain for their efforts. " Tom Goes to the Mayor" had its moments, measured in moments, but their other shows ever rise to greater depths. They rate a resounding MEH in my Entertain-o-Metertm. Chrimbus. Humbug.

I am sadly on the Scrooge end of things this year. The emptiness of the Season is palpable. Rampant consumerism, even on the cheap, drives the thing. As far as our current culture is concerned, Jesus AIN'T the reason for the season. Black Friday and Cyber-whenever are.

To raise the mood level, I encourage you to watch the above video. It'll even make ME feel better.

Humbug.
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Addendum: I always get this way this time of year, a relatively mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, a non-euphonious name for Blue Christmas. Waning sunlight and overheated expectations do not a good combo make. Customers who are loath to pay timely (cough-publicschools-cough) also add to the joy. I HEART public school. What's not to love about an organization built upon "Someone Else Will Pay For It"?

"But teachers are having to take their own money to buy toilet paper and pencils for their students!!!"

I weep. They signed up for the gig. Have their union and/or professional organizations push to DECREASE the size of the administration. The school systems are top-heavy with non-teachers sucking up the resources. Ho, ho, ho. You might get fewer crack-brained ideas filling the schools with non-working educational schemes.

Oops...there I go again!

The television box was on, and I heard the latest holiday KFC ad, with the spokeschick burbling about their new "Festive Feast".

Festive

Feast.

Our language is cast adrift from all etymological moorings.

Happy Hollydaze!

Hope everyone had a marvelous Thanksgiving time.

Having had the term "rant" obliquely aimed at a Facebook comment (I was responding to something that had do be answered, and did so rationally), I started thinking about rants, primarily what a rant isn't. If I reasonably respond in disagreement to your point of view, that does not constitute a rant. To be pellucid, just because I don't agree with you, my answer is not automatically a rant.

NOT A RANT!!!!!!!!

(ahem)

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I am bugged by how few conservative, Constitutional black politicians there are out there. Alan Keyes was a man I supported several years ago, but he is not on the radar any more. Herman Cain is a possibility.
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Vox has been uttering dark utterances about the Tea Party for some time, but I have bravely whistled past the graveyard. Well, the Tea Party is being co-opted. The losses by Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell have made them gunshy about different candidates with odd comments. The Movers and Shakers are pushing to take a page from the Conservative playbook. Their socially conservative playbook. You know the one, the overwhelmingly popular and successful playbook that has done things like reverse Roe v. Wade.

The Tea Party leaders want to be Successful, and apparently do not see their initial muscle-flexing as Successful Enough. They want to do not only fiscal conservatism; they want to add social conservatism as well. The problem is, much of what flies as "socially conservative" does not fly as Constitutional.

War on drugs: unConstitutional
Abortion "rights": unConstitutional (pro or con)

These are most popular issues among social conservatives (read: conservative Republicans or Constitution partiers). They are not congruent with the stated Tea Party concerns of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, Free Markets. The Tea Party distinctives are threatened by same-old "conservative" interests.

For my money, Constitutional=Conservative.

Teal Party people, don't allow the Conservative losers to cause you to lose what made you a (comparative) winner this November. The fact that opponents or friends want you to change means that you probably shouldn't.

Just ran across a website "Blackdoctors.org". Actually, it ran across me in the form of a pop-up browser page.The site capitalizes "Black".

In true Hannity fashion, I ask "What would happen if we started "whitedoctors.org" to deal with the special medical needs of White people? What dreadful things would be written or said about the effort?

Perhaps "That's RAYYYYY-cist"?

(Incidentally, there isn't one.)

For your Holiday Travel wardrobe





















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Black 100% preshrunk cotton tee. $20 including shipping.
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Sizes S-5X, because we are not The Gap.

The Dread Dormomoo and I were discussing the current kerfuffle over the TSA's special secure brand of molestation, and herself sagely opined that it is part of Government's ongoing effort to subjugate the citizenry.by public humiliation, to render us sheepish. This methodology has been used for years in pub...er, Government schools to control the kinder. The sharp-tongued harridan (or Teacher) will ridicule and verbally humiliate a student who is not measuring up to behavioral or academic norms, providing an object lesson for the rest of the class.

The sexually invasive methods of security screening favored by the TSA belong in a third-world...sorry, developing nation rather than the United States. You can thank the PC zeitgeist for this development. Israel, whose every neighbor wishes to be no more, has not had an EL AL jet to fall from the skies onto Jerusalem or Tel Aviv because they know what to do. It has been said that American security looks for weapons; Israelis look for terrorists. Because it is not considered fair to look for people who look or sound a certain way, we waste our time and efforts groping Lutheran grandmas and blond-haired, blue-eyed children looking for explosive bras or Underoos. The Israelis talk to passengers. They look for a profile. Three times they speak eye-to-eye to flyers, and remove the hinky ones. The inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan are swarthy, as are the Saudis, whence came funding for the 9/11 events. Is it beyond the pale to look for those who hail from these peoples, or do we remove everyone else, and leave the skies to the AY-rabs?

I suggest that we not fly. Vox encourages this, as well. If the airlines feel the pinch, perhaps the bottom line will help them resist the groping they endure from the Feds.

Behold the Singularity!

Because, well, why not?

This came up on Vox Popoli today.



We can ship on Monday. Choose a shirt color that white ink will work on, and contact me via aardbiz (at) hiwaay.net

The television box is rife with ads for various slick liquids to enhance your sexual experience- especially if you are female. They give tingly cold or buzzy warm sensations, and are flogged as making your sex more intense. Hurrah for intense, though I prefer mine in the house. This has raised a serious question in what we laughingly call my mind, to wit:

When did sex itself stop being good enough?

Your Aardvark has been married for over three decades, has four kids, and thus has some experience in these matters.
Overall, sex is a pretty neat deal. It requires effort, as anything worth doing does, especially if one is interested in one's partner getting as much out of it as oneself does. The payoff is quite nice, indeed. Some will ruin their lives and existing relationships to get that payoff with persons not-their-spouse. (I know, take a little lie-down. That revelation was surely a shocker.) The question remains: when did sex stop being good enough? Why do we have to buy exotic (and comparatively expensive) tingly goo to enjoy ourselves?

I wonder if we are seeing the penultimate result of promiscuity, people becoming so jaded with their merry-go-round of lovers and hook-ups; not quite to the end, yet, but almost...alllllmoooosssst *ahem* ...sorry. Really, though, does a person become so overcome with ennui that the normal cannot satisfy anymore, that juices and suits and power tools and kink become the new normal? Are we a culture of Dorian Grays?

From the outset, God created male and female humans, looked and proclaimed it "very good", as opposed to merely "good" for the rest of creation. When Adam and Eve were introduced in Genesis, they were told to "be fruitful and multiply". One of the first commandments recorded amounts to God patting the young couple on the head and telling them to go make love. Given the lack of self-help books extant at the time, they apparently had to figure it all out on their own. They apparently did, and all without Victoria's Secret or the internet.

Now, do not consider this a bleat for the standard of the position du missionnaire or any such pseudo-puritanical nonsense. The palette of sex-play is large and varied, and bounded by very few biblical strictures, largest of which looms: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Between that and common sense, you can go a long way. I merely ask that we examine the why. Why is what was very good in the beginning now just not good enough?

For your Hallowe'en enjoyment:

So, Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan- principal exports being hounds that look like supermodels and small blankets- has received millions of dollars in cash from Iran.

Clearly, he does not need us.

Mr. President Obama, sir, take a hint from this and bring all our soldiers home NOW!

Behold our small efforts to keep 1950s Tiki culture alive. Bamboo huts, violently-colored fruity drinks with umbrellas in 'em, flaming pupu platters, wahines in grass skirts. Tiki statues.

Wahines in grass skirts.

Your Aardvark has eBay auctions going (aardvark3 is my eBay name). Check out his tie-dyed tiki goodness. Also, the fluorescent tie-dyed Easter Island Moai head shirts!

Isn't this what blogging is really all about?

"I have ridden the mighty Moon Worm!"

That ain't so much...of a much. (QUICK! What's that from???)

For I have eaten...THE MIGHTY PEANUT BUTTER! (and liked it.) Now, my family will be in all-but-seizures over this, because my dislike, nay, hatred of peanut butter is legendary.
I really loathe it. The oily silkiness, which is great in a CAO wrapper, is dreadful in a sandwich. However, I have felt...other...than everyone else, and have wished that I did like PB, because everyone else seemed to get so much out of it. But I was not a PB eater. I was not of the Body. I could not eat it, even if it was the Will of Landru.

Then, tonight happened. Riatsila brought home some JIF Natural. It is the closest thing I fave found to freshly, coarsely-ground roasted peanuts like GNC used to grind and sell in-store, back when they were more of a health-food store at the mall, instead of the phony-steroid store at the mall. THAT was yummy, back in college. Regular peanut butter was terrible.

Tonight, I had a bit on a spoon, and it was nice. So I went a little crazy. We had some Lance Smokehouse Cheddar Captain's Wafers. I put a dollop of the Jif Natural on one, and lo, it was very good. I won't overdo this, though. Might need to eat it after the Crash.
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Not only has GNC fallen from its former purity. Back when I was an environmental Studies major, we went all the way, baby. Mother Earth News. Prevention Magazine. Organic Farming and Gardening. J.I.Rodale published the last two, and they were the blueprints of healthful living. After his death and the death of his son Robert some years later, the blueprint faded. OGF has a name change and a website, which is good. Prevention has become a shill for Big Pharma. How the mighty have fallen.

Yet more shirty silliness from the Aardvark.
4chan should be pleased.

The Horror...THE HORROR!!!

I discovered a wonderful 1950's series called "Science Fiction Theater", a syndicated program from Ivan Tors of "Flipper" and "Gentle Ben" fame. From 1955-1957, this anthology explored science, space, time travel, and the paranormal in 30-minute bites. It is full of '50s sensibilities, and you may recognize many a guest star. Here is Wikipedia's description of an episode:

Before the Beginning

An obsessive scientist is unaware his wife is gravely ill as he works to develop a machine for generating high energy photons. He believes the photons, similar to those ejected from the sun, were the origin of life on Earth. When his "photon gun" generates living matter, he uses it to treat his wife's degenerated endocrine system with positive results. But was it the technology or his renewed love for his wife that caused her to rally? Episode is heavy with 1950s religiosity and tacit Frankenstienian warnings about man meddling with things he shouldn't.

A true horror tale, with that 1950s religiosity and all. That is what chaps me. This quasi-warning by the wiki writer is so typical of the quasi-intelligentsia that tend to write and proctor the online encyclopedia. It is also typical of the progressive/left, period. The thing that really frightens people about Beck, f'rinstance, is his unashamed faith, his daring to speak openly about God, Christ and the spiritual history of the US.

Another attitude that exists is shown most clearly in the Brookings Institute report from 1960 concerning "Implications of a Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life", part of the larger "Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs".
Regarding the reaction of mankind (what Neal Boortz refers to as the 'dumb masses') to the revelation of the existence of extraterrestrial life, the report states:

"The positions of the major American religious denominations, the Christian sects, and the eastern religions on the matter of extraterrestrial life need elucidation. Consider the following: 'The fundamentalist (and anti-science) sects are growing apace around the world . . . For them, the discovery of other life–rather than any other space product–would be electrifying. . . . some scattered studies need to be made both in their home centers and churches and their missions, in relation to attitudes about space activities and extraterrestrial life.'" – page 225, n.34

One writer notes:

Curiously, the report also suggests that both scientists and religious fundamentalists might have their paradigms most altered by the verification of extraterrestrial life.

The report warns:

"Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure
of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when
they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies
espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that
survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price
of changes in values and attitudes and behavior."

Poor Bible bangers will go off their nut if they learn of alien lifeforms.

A weird site called The Bible UFO Connection posits:
Organized Bible based religions are, for the most part, also silent on the UFO phenomenon, either through fear of facing the reality, refusal to recognize it or church mandated social isolation. This is an enigma in itself considering the fame of Ezekiel's wheels, the chariots of the Gods, (the verse, not the book, well maybe the book too), and other evidence of flying vehicles in biblical text. When mainstream religion does deal with the anomaly, there are two doctrinal views concerning the presence of UFOs, the holograph theory and the evil alien conspiracy. One approach states that the UFOs are holographic illusions projected by Satan to lure the congregation away from the church and into alien worship, eventually enslaving mankind. The other, more radical view surmises that the beings piloting the UFOs are actually fallen angels with Satan in the mother ship. They are lurking on the dark side of the moon or some other evil hideaway, occasionally visiting our atmosphere to abduct and implant a few of their human followers, slaughter some cows, scrawl satanic graffiti in our barley fields or run circles around our jets. Either way, UFOs are evil and UFO believers are either dupes or disciples of Satan. Contrary to the doomsday bellowing of the satanic UFO prophets, this widespread cover-up itself could easily be classified as a Great Deception, while evil soul-stealing aliens piloting UFOs are not mentioned in scripture. Certainly the cover-up is safe here, in total confusion and ignorant bliss.

(The site is doctrinally suspect, and unless you have a good grounding in Biblical teachings, and have a knack for being discerning, peruse with extreme caution.)

The cultural bottom line: Bible-believing Christians are too stoo-pid to handle the possibility of life on other planets. Their faith will implode, and their heads explode, should ET come a-calling. There will be riots in the streets, pitchforks and firebrands, and it will all make Westboro Baptist look sane by comparison.

As one of those Bible-believing Christians, I take umbrage at this. Yes, I will take ALL the umbrage. None for you. *ahem* Biblically, we are informed that there are other non-human intelligences: angels (cherubim, seraphim) and demons for starters. If you read the Bible without traditional blinders, there are even other gods, for how can one have others before Yahweh if there are no others? Perhaps they are hyper-demons. Who knows? (I bet I know Someone who does!) It would not trouble me one whit if we found lizardoids from Yed Prior (look it up!). God, being the Creator and all, may have myriads of races out yonder.

My personal opinion, ngaaaaah, and it is only an opinion, is that all the expanse of Creation lives in perfect harmony with the Creator, and ours is the only planet that blew it.

I suspect the Roman Catholic take is a tad shady. The human race fell because of Adam's sin, not the Zan from Rukbat 9. If another race in another star system required redemption, I daresay the Redeemer would appear at the appropriate time. I find the pale, blue-eyed, brunette images of Jesus to be lacking in redemptive or Biblical qualities. What would a spiky air-slug from Grumium 4 think of them? No, they would need their own Grumian redeemer.

Wow, talking about this makes me want to set fire to something, then stick it with a pitchfork.

A person with a true Biblical worldview and cosmology is proof against the slings and arrows of oddness in the news, or in the saucers.

Now, if I could just wrap my head around Richard C. Hoagland's hyper-dimensional physics, and why it makes my souffles fall....

Living in the '60's your Aardvark developed a strong fondness for simplicity in logo typography. The examples above are testimony to the usefulness of simplicity. It was only later, when liberal arts foofery insinuated itself into my brain that Art Nouveau and such polluted the elegant plainness I loved as a yout'. Art Deco started my healing, and now I'm back to my first design love.

Granted, Nouveau and such have their place: wine shops, boutiques, and bistros on the square, but an Aardvark craves not these things. The Seatrain logo says it all: how stuff gets from there to here

Strength, simplicity...works in advertising; works for the Gospel.

In honor of our burgeoning welfare state:

From a former schoolmate:

I am SOOOO angry! The $**%^ oral surgeon's office called this afternoon and said they have decided not to accept **** as a patient! She cried most of the afternoon. I did, too, in my car coming home early to be with her. Now I am over the crying and ready to kick the butt of every conservative or rich fat cat that thinks only those who can afford it should get health care....**** is the littlest one on my profile picture. She has suffered from the effects of Lupus since puberty. How could she have worked and saved money to pay for health care? So what do the Republicans want me to, push her off into the ocean in a row boat to die? We spent what little family savings we had paying my mother's medical bills. There is just ****'s Trust fund and it's not that much....Okay, I am done now. It was good to get that off my chest so I didn't punch the next "I got mine screw you" person.

How precisely have we gotten here? I know "Shrek" Grayson, the doubtable Florida Congresstroll has beaten this drum in his pathetic bid to Be Noticed, but I know this person. She is hurting, her child is hurting, and she perceives that the Republicans wish her and her daughter ill. The siren song of the Left lyrically states that if you have a need, we will pick someone's pocket -MANY someones' pockets- and help you with the proceeds. The Obamster and his lapdog legislators are dreaming up even more creative ways to extract money from you to give to others. Have you a 401K? They would lo-o-o-o-o-ve to "administer" that money for you. There are plans in the works...studies...examining just how to do it. If there is a fund of mega-moolah floating untouched in private hands, pensions, f'rinstance, the Federal Givemint wants control of it, yelling like a J.G.Wentworth ad: "It's MY money, and I need it NOW!". In tax legislation and regulations, money that you keep to spend is viewed as "negative revenue". ALL your money is really Uncle Sam's, but he graciously lets you keep some of it. Welcome to Beltway-think.

Now, my friend has done what she should: used money that she had to help care for her mom.This depleted her family's resources. This has left her in an unsteady situation financially. Her daughter has unmet medical problems, beyond what a local clinic can handle. What to do? Anyone have any ideas? Any resources she might be able to rely on? Any charities? Any "fat cats" with a good heart?

I am astonished at this. How can someone be so infected with disinformation...lies...and cut themselves off from the very ones who want better for her than the Government dole? I'm not rich, but I am a conservative, and I surely wish only the best for her and her family. The liars, schemers and thieves who promulgate such ogreish "row-boat" lies have much to answer for. Who exhibits an "I've got mine, screw you" attitude?

How have we gotten here?

Bless you, i09. I linked a contextually-appropriate blog entry on a UFO thread, and your readership has delivered! It has been a record-breaking day for my little puddle next to the Great Blog Sea. I hope that you enjoyed your visit, and will come back .
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Your Aardvark horrified his wife and Number-Two-Son on Saturday night by turning on Sharktopus, the SyFy channel's much-ballyhooed movie. (I am amused...Blogger thinks "SyFy is mis-spelled. Imagine that.)
Roger Corman's schlockfest was precisely as dreadful as we had dreaded with bated breath.
I will not bother with the script...it's about a sharktopus, after all. The CG effects are precisely what you should expect from a SyFy Saturday night feature. The lighting and surface detail of the shark head reminded me of nothing less than a Lego shark. No. Mega-Blox. The effects artists were apparently unfamiliar with continuity as a cinematic concept. From shot to shot, the critter would be wet, then dry, then wet, with no intervening dunking. The logic of this bio-engineered beastie defies apprehension: a shark's head, with octopus arms behind. Octopus arms with blades on the ends that it knows how to use. AND, it can walk on its arms on dry land, swarming up trees and architecture with no obvious need for sharkish gill-breathing.

Why would anyone make a thing like that?

Having spent a measurable portion of my life seeing it, I believe that Corman owes me summat. "Roger", himself sez, "Roger, have I got a story for you! A manic-depressive bio-engineer with too many hyphens in his life cobbles together the Octo-Shark, a cephalopod with a great white shark-head grafted onto each arm. It'll be COLOSSAL, I tells ya...."

Shouting while ducking the goons applying the straitjacket "DID I MENTION THE NARWHAL HORNS...?!"

In light of current mumphing about the CLASSIC "Punisher" movie starring Dolph Lundgren (hey, remember when it was the only game in town...?) here is the Dolphster in the

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Norton Anti-Virus - Lundgren vs Unicorn - Deny (2010)

Aardvark Versus the Ants

I am currently enjoying a stay at the Baton Rouge Crowne Plaza. Bonnie P. and Tajia are around, being helpful during dealer room hours. I came not expecting to have room-mates, though.

No, your Aardvark is not practicing moral turpitude. I refer to the little beggars currently scarfing down my pizza. I ate some of my dinner, then got a mighty craving for chocolate. I went down to the hotel shop and availed myself. Upon returning, I found movement on the small sofa in the room, around my Domino's box. Ants, Mr. Rico, zillions of them! I moved the box to check the situation, and got myself well bitten for my efforts. There is a caravan of ants moving from the wall under the window, going under and within the sofa (which explains the odd bites I suffered last night when I sat on the sofa to relax a little while). The appropriate personnel are at home abed, so no fumigation is forthcoming tonight. I am receiving a free breakfast. We shall see what happens.

Here is a link to an excellent Radio Drama, Leiningen Versus the Ants. Very good listening, being a story of mankind versus army ants in South America. Enjoy!

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UPDATE:

After another call to the front desk, the facilities guy came up with a can of Raid. Lemony death to the ants. Hurrrrr hurrrrrr!

The con this weekend is Louisianime. We are doing far better here than we did in Wooster OH at KitsuneCon. Far. Better.

"Goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them."-- Dr.Henry Jones





Everything about the proposed Koran-burning points to the problem of a maverick church group utterly ignoring the authority of the Scripture it purports to follow.

"Pastor" Terry Jones of the the "Dove World Outreach Center" in Gainesville, Florida is doing this profoundly stupid act apart from any clear directives from God's Word (though between his title and the name of the group, I have no clue why this should surprise me).
The New Testament does not promote inter-religion warfare, only the preaching of the Gospel. The ONLY time the burning of books occurred was when the Ephesian Christians repented of their occult involvement and chose to burn their own sorcerous tomes.

Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices.
And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. (Acts 19: 18-19)

That is some serious repentance. They repented of their own sins, and chose to destroy the implements thereof. I am leery of church-related practices that hearken back to the German book-burnings of WWII. It's just bad form, and the press it receives serves to further inoculate the world against hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul did not lead the believers to hang the Emperor in effigy, nor to burn his latest best-seller, nor even melt down silver statues of Diana. Jesus, who warned against the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, did not encourage the faithful to stone little models of it. Jones is taking it upon himself to behave badly in reaction to the 9/11 bombings, never mind that it will infuriate millions of adherents of Islam, and render them even more difficult to reach with the Gospel.

Great job!

The church, the "Dove World Outreach Center" is acting against its own name, unless it wishes to reach out with unreasoning hatefulness. There is no love of God evident in this dog-and-pony show, just a little man giving the digitus sinistrus to a rival religion, and thereby trading a ministerial collar for a Star Trek red shirt.

The better to be a martyr with, my dear.

Glenn Beck and I share some things in common, most notably that we both make Wonder BreadTM look like pumpernickel. This makes it doubly ironic that Mr. Beck has a much firmer grasp on the finer points of Martin Luther King's vision of racial relations than do the Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons, and their cadre of racialism-mongers. Beck's 8/28 message sought to renew the call to examine content of character rather content of melanin. Sharpton's rally message was essentially "black, black, black, us, our". Of course, this makes sense in that the "civil rights leaders" make their daily bread by maintaining the drumbeat of disaffectedness.

While there is a...distance between Beck's message and the Tea Party movement -though overlap will naturally occur- but he himself has a movement, not political, but moral and Constitutional. His message is pure. (Bear with me, here.)



Luther's followers were so odious that he wished to kill off some of them. Luther's message was pure. His revelation of justification by faith in Christ as taught in Romans was freeing to him, and to Western Christendom. His followers turned it into an "ism". Alexander Campbell and other Restoration leaders wished to get back to the simplicity of New Testament church life. Their message was pure. Many of their followers have reduced the vision from the simplicity of grace and truth to a pharisaical once saved-never saved play-it-safe system that robs the faithful of joy. Any leader with insight or a truth learns that that truth can be hostage to the whims of the followers. The Restoration leaders pointed to the Bible. Now we point to their writings; books, sermons, and letters. Truth once removed.

Beck is at heart a Believer. He believes in God and Christ, and some other bits we may not understand. He is a Believer in the Constitution, and that it works when applied. He believes in the Republic, and that it is what the founders gave us, if we could but keep it. Perhaps we can rescue and keep it still. Beck's vision is pure. He must ride herd to make certain that followers do not bend his message to their own political will, and dilute and sully it. Partisan mumphing will kill any restoration of the Republic, which the darker-minded suspect may be the point. Keep your enemies close, and your friends closer. Often, they can be your real undoing.