Tonight We Dine In Hell...

... and talk about movies.

skybalon: It looked really cool but it was so over the top, I don't even know what it was about
Osama: That doesn't surprise me... It was about passion, and freedom, and being willing to die for what you believe in.
skybalon: Homoeroticism?
Osama: You see? This is why your people are weak, this is why you will destroy yourselves
skybalon: "your people?"
Osama: Yes, "your people." You believe in nothing. You're so cynical, and that's just a pathetic mask for your fear to care about anything or to keep you from seeing the extent of your moral depravity. You can't recognize zeal or are so afraid to attach yourself to anything that might have meaning you laugh at and attack those who believe in something
skybalon: Because we're not a comic book?
Osama: Fine- go ahead. This is your passion, making fun?
skybalon: Really- you're saying that 300 was about anything more than abs, blood, and a handful of boobs? It had nothing to do with passion, humanity, or even anything real. It was all about video game caricature and-

Tiffany: Hi, guys. Here's some refills
skybalon: Great, thanks.
Osama: Tiffany, could I get less ice next time? That would be great.
Tiffany: Oh, of course, I'm sorry- would you like me to get you another Sprite?
Osama: No- I'd rather drink this now- just remember for next time.
Tiffany: Sure. Your food should be right up
skybalon: Okay, thanks.

Osama: No one dies apart from Allah's will- so it is a shame to die cowardly. This movie is about the great reward for those who live and die for freedom and virtue- He would not allow their deeds to perish and this showed the greatness of their strength
skybalon: You're serious?
Osama: Yes-
skybalon: It was about freedom and virtue?
Osama: What? It showed us that those who are not willing to die for freedom are not worthy to live with it. It showed us-
skybalon: Come on-
Osama: I beg your pardon- I wasn't finished
skybalon: ...
Osama: It showed us the free man does not surrender to infidels and sinners. It showed us that without blood- no degradation or humiliation can be removed. It showed us that freedom isn-
skybalon: If you say, "Freedom isn't free." I'm going to vomit.
Osama: What- why?
skybalon: What, "why?" You're not saying anything. It's just like the movie- It's supposed to be inspirational or spine-steeling but it's just propaganda for chest waxing and puffy nipples. It's not about real freedom or strength- it's not even really about violence. And what you're saying is just as meaningless- you might as well just sit there and say, "freedom is good," and leave it at that.
Osama: Well it is good and I think this shows us how weak you are.
skybalon: Maybe. But what you're talking about isn't worth much. It's just a tossed off gesture like a yellow ribbon magnet, and you're just as shallow and weak as that is.
Osama: I'm shallow!? I'm weak!? I live in a cave- a cave! I've given up everything for my people's freedom. What have you done? What? Nothing!
skybalon: Settle down people are looking.
Osama: Good, I want them to look
skybalon: No- you don't-

Tiffany: BBQ Chicken Sandwich?
skybalon: Right here, thank you
Tiffany: Taco Salad- bleu cheese on the side?
Osama: Thank you
Tiffany: Can I get you anything else right now?
Osama: No, everything looks great, thank- El khara dah! Tiffany, There's Green Leaf in this.
Tiffany: I'm sorry...?
Osama: Do you put Green Leaf lettuce in a taco?
Tiffany: Oh, I see- I'm sorry, would you like me to get you something else or...?
Osama: No. I'd like you to answer the question- Do you put Green Leaf lettuce in a taco?
Tiffany: Uh... No- I guess not.
Osama: No you don't. If it's not in a taco, why would it be in a taco salad? I thought I was ordering a taco salad.
Tiffany: Of course, let me take it back and I'll get you another.
Osama: Yes please. And have it made right. Something like that really should be mentioned on the menu.
Tiffany: Absolutely. I apologize and I'll make sure it's out here as quickly as possible.
Osama: Thanks, Tiffany- you're terrific.

Osama: Next time we come here I'm just ordering a cheeseburger, In shah Allah.

Now Sit... I Said Sit!

A dog owner in the US state of Maryland says her golden retriever Toby saved her from choking to death by performing the Heimlich manoeuvre.

Debbie Parkhurst, 45, said she was eating an apple at home last Friday when a piece became lodged in her throat and she began to choke.

"The next think I know, Toby's up on his hind feet and he's got his front paws on my shoulders," she told Associated Press.

"He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest."

Ms Parkhurst is recovering from chest and stomach wounds from Toby's jumping.

"I literally have paw print-shaped bruises on my chest. I'm still a little hoarse, but otherwise I'm OK," she said.
...

"The doctor said I probably wouldn't be here without Toby. I keep looking at him and saying, 'You're amazing'."

Ms Parkhurst and Toby have now been asked on to numerous US chat shows.

BBC News

That's garbage-

So she gets to be on TV because her dog is so poorly behaved it knocks her down and jumps on her?

I don't believe it. I believe her dog is poorly behaved, but I don't believe her dog saved her life. Well I don't believe it saved her life as she describes it. Her dog may certainly keep her from taking her own life out of loneliness and desperation, but I don't believe her dog saved her from choking.

But let's suppose it might be true. Forget how unverifiable this is. Her dog did knock her down and jump on her chest, sure.

Her bad dog raising and lonely gluttony led to the happy accident of her eating alone, choking, and her dog jumping, not only on her chest- because that won't quickly dislodge an object from your trachea, but also on her abdomen- hard enough to get that chunk of apple out. And then her dog licked her face because, as I Like Girls could tell you, that's the best way to keep someone from passing out or dying from asphyxiation.

Big deal.

We'll say it's true- but why is it a good story to tell? Dogs have been to space. Dogs have called 911. Dogs built the Eiffel tower. My dogs kept me from bleeding to death and reattached my severed thumb.

I nearly sliced off my left thumb while learning to juggle. Thankfully Chelsea had the presence of mind to knock me down, elevate my arm and apply pressure to my radial artery. Then Lily licked my wounds clean, (their mouths are cleaner than ours) applied a local anesthetic to my thumb, reconnected the internal structures, and did one of the cleanest suturing jobs anyone has ever seen on the top side of my thumb, though you can clearly see the suture tracts on the ventral side. What do you expect? She's a dog.

That's a dog saving your life story.

I have a scar on my thumb and dog hair on my shirt to prove it.

Why The Oblique Face?

WARNING: The following may cause some readers' monocles to fall out as they gasp, "Well- I never!"

If I say so and so is a pussy to mean so and so is weak or lame, I don't mean so and so is like a vagina- I don't know if that's what you think it's supposed to mean- but that's not what I mean. I mean someone is weak and lame. I also don't mean the "weak and lame someone" is womanlike by being weak and lame or that womanlike is weak and lame.

It might be that someone or someones used pussy to mean weak and lame because they thought vaginas were weak and lame and so connected the two ideas. Or it might be that some men identified all women as weak and lame, and since women have vaginas- perhaps it is vaginas that make women women- some men decided to call someone- most likely another man- weak and lame by identifying them as that which they thought made a woman a woman. So for some, pussy may be shorthand for "woman," which is itself shorthand for "weak and lame." I don't think there is anything essential to women that is weak and lame, so for me that connection doesn't make sense. I understand it, but it doesn't make sense.

Or maybe someone or someones used pussy to mean soft and effete and some other one or ones used it to mean vagina so they needn't be explained in relation to each other. Oh homophones- the confusion you can cause.

If vagina's the only thing pussy could mean then I wouldn't use it. I would instead say pansy. Of course I wouldn't mean a flower when I say pansy- I would mean someone who is weak and lame- and by that you may think pussy. And if you're still thinking vagina- I can't do anything about that. In fact, you should probably avoid the interwebs if your mind so quickly goes to vagina.

I also don't mean penis if I say dick, or anus if I say asshole.

So, I will purposefully say pussy, and you might take issue with it. If you do, I think it perfectly appropriate that you say something- only make sure you're saying something about my use of the word and not something else.

That said:

I finally brought myself around to trying to finish John Eldredge's Wild at Heart. I started it a long time ago when a friend of mine said it had changed her life. This change was evident by the fact that she continued looking for romantic relationships to provide her some sense of worth, only now she would no longer try to convert gay men and instead focus on finding fulfillment in the comic book masculinity of Eldredge's Christian men. I still couldn't do it- read it that is.

I looked up bullet ants after reading a pain scale for bug bites on BOING. They're the worst. I've been bit by fire ants and didn't think they were so bad- now I know why. They actually aren't so bad. Here's what I found about bullet ants though:

"Bullet ants are used by some indigenous people in their initiation rites to manhood (Bequaert, 1926). The ants are first knocked out by drowning them in a natural chloroform, and then hundreds of them are woven into sleeves made out of leaves, stinger facing inward. When the ants come to, boys slip the sleeve down onto their arm. The goal of this initiation rite is to keep the sleeve on for a full ten minutes without showing any signs of pain. When finished, the boys' (now men) arms are temporarily paralyzed because of the venom, and they may shake uncontrollably for days."

That's some expectation isn't it? Being a man means being bitten and poisoned by ants. I don't think that I could do that- I also don't think that has anything to do with being a man. But then, I'm afraid of bees.

So some five years later and I still haven't finished Wild at Heart and I don't think I ever will. That being the case perhaps I am not qualified to say if you think being a man is about being a literary type while somewhere else in the world children become men by being bit thousands of times by bullet ants, you're a pussy. But I'll say it anyway; if you think being a Christian man is about being a literary type while somewhere else in the world children become men by being bit thousands of times by bullet ants, then you're a pussy.

It's not that being bit by ants is more manly than wanting to be Batman. If you're a Christian, it makes as much sense to become a man by being Batman as it does being bit by hundreds of bullet ants. So in addition to the above, I should say if you think being a Christian man is about being a literary type even if nowhere else in the world children became men by being bit thousands of times by bullet ants, then you're a pussy.

Of course stoically being bit by bullet ants for ten minutes is more painful and requires more self-control than trying to be the movie character William Wallace. And post-ant-bites, there's probably strong connections from the shared experience that only the ant-bitten know that is stronger and likely more meaningful than the men who share the desire to be Robin Hood. But I wouldn't say it's more "manly." I would say it's more painful, requires more self-control and a sense of trust before and, builds camaraderie after.

I certainly think we should be able to endure much more than we do without complaining, and I'm all for the "spirit of camaraderie that exists between men, like you'd find only in combat maybe or in a pro-ball club in the heat of the peenant drive," but it's nothing to do with manliness.

But then, my point is not to compare the two. It's about what it might mean to become a man in light of being a Christian- or if it can even make sense to pose the question like that in light of being a Christian.

There is a difference between an adult and a child- there is some becoming involved but is it the Christian man's calling to become manly let alone more manly? Or, El Guapo, could it be that once again we are using words and categories that do not make sense for us as Christians to use?

I'm sure I am way behind the curve on this whole Eldredge nonsense, but the gender roles we idolize and the meanings Christians give to words like masculine and feminine are timelessly stupid, as are the things we say and do in light of these concepts. Our ideas of what makes someone a good leader or how one might perceive their own leadership could be a couple of those stupid things.

And now, true to form- I will leave this idea hanging there- underdeveloped. Ha ha.

You Say You Love Your Wife- You're Such a Woman
This Guy's In Love- Burt Bacharach
Adagio for Strings- Munch, Boston Symphony
Who Made You So Smart- The Briefs
I Wish I Had An Evil Twin- Magnetic Fields
Red Rain- The White Stripes
Island In The Sun- Weezer
Gimmie Some Salt- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Misty Mountain Hop- Led Zeppelin
Blue In Green- Miles Davis
'Tis Autumn- Stan Getz
Painter Song- Norah Jones
How Could I Just Kill a Man- Rage Against The Machine
It's Magic- Sarah Vaughan
3 Speed- Eels

In Fact, They're A' Peeling Him Off The Sidewalk

I don't think he cares, but MY PRESIDENT appeals to me when he talks about Latin America...

No...

I find MY PRESIDENT appealing when he talks about Latin America. Even though I distrust the neo-liberal model of the world that equates democracy with capitalism and capitalism with US economic colonialism, I find his thoughts on Latin America to be one of the few areas where he is speaking about something for which he has actual thoughts and cares. I don't buy almost anything he says about the region, but at least it is one of the few times he is not talking out of his butt. Or even if he is, at least his butt has given it some thought.

That appeals to me, though I don't think he is trying to appeal to me, or people like me.

I think this is a reason he appeals to so many Evangelicals.

By his design, or that of his handlers, he surrounds himself with like-minded loyalists who have no time nor need to consider any view but their own because they are right. I guess it's not just him- I know it's not just him. It's an entire culture.

Tom Delay has been on radio and TV lately hawking whatever it is the Devil has him hawking. He said things that were very telling. Tom Delay said it's been four years since America has been attacked by "these" terrorists and that's why we have to be in Iraq.

Really.

On national television- the former House Majority Leader called the Hammer for his reputation of disciplining those not in agreement with him said the US was attacked four years ago (?) and we had to strike back (?) and that's why we're in Iraq(?).

That's absolutley not true but that is his justification for why we are who we are.

He also said on NPR that he had a responsibility to destroy those that didn't see the world as he did and create a governmental structure that would prevent them from having any say in government.

His job was to eliminate those that did not share this false sense of the world?

John Bolton was on the Daily Show explaining this regime's conception of democracy: MY PRESIDENT- or any president- only has to represent those that voted for him. People that don't share or support your agenda are not Americans, at least they're not the right kind of Americans.

In case you didn't know, that's not democracy. Even if it's hard to define as it's actually experienced- it's not that.

Okay, maybe you say Tom Delay is an aberration and doesn't represent MY PRESIDENT or his ideology. And John Bolton's lost his job, so he isn't representative of what MY PRESIDENT is all about either. I'd say you're wrong and the whole history of MY PRESIDENT valuing loyalty over competence, dismissing and discounting alternative perspectives, fabricating and/or selectively believing and interpreting "facts," and the IGMFY mentality would say so as well.

Do you remember how Dick Cheney said, "simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction?" The being wrong part isn't as problematic as the "no doubt," because, well, there was a lot of doubt. At least others doubted it, questioned it, wanted to understand it. But there was no room for doubting the earth was created in six literal days- I mean, no room for doubting the existence of weapons of mass destruction because it did not fit in with their agenda or sense of what they wanted the world to be. Though I wouldn't guess Cheney actually believed there were weapons of mass destruction- it was just something necessary to affirm to get along.

And this current mess with the fired USA's fits right in with that. Doesn't it? I mean even if you think it's okay to fire otherwise competent federal prosecutors just because you don't like that they are investigating your criminal friends, isn't MY PRESIDENT's stonewalling and saying he and his employees have no obligation to tell the truth, and has no responsibility to anyone else leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth? It should.

America is only for those people who support them. They only need to address the interests of those who match up with their way of thinking. The world is for those who share their vision of what the world is and for. What a weird sense of America that is. What a weird sense of the world that is. But what a sense of America that seems to match up so well with what Evangelicals seem to think churches are for.

Is that where we are- is that what we value? Leaders who's greatest strengths are disregarding others and surrounding themselves with yes men? Presenting a world of cosmic war where you're either "we" or "other?" Creating a sense of fear and persecution and setting the truth of your claims on various types of coercion?

Our country's... and churches are being run by high schoolers- a certain type of high schooler anyway.

Tonight We Dine In Hell...

... and have quesadillas.

I'm never going to finish my anniversary letter to Iraq. It was a great idea though- a love letter from a crazy man.

Oh well.

On to things I can finish- like my review of 300. I love blood and physics defying fight scenes. But more than that I love narratives that put into clear contrast the divisive ideologies and issues of our times.

I know there's some tadoo about whether this is an allegory for our current context and who's who, but I don't understand the confusion. Clearly King Leonidas, especially as he is heroically leading his soldiers into battle, fighting alongside them, facing down a technologically and numerically superior force is a perfect picture of MY PRESIDENT. I don't even think metaphor and allegory are correct terms. Leonidas in 300 is an exact representation of MY PRESIDENT. Leonidas is MY PRESIDENT. MY PRESIDENT is Leonidas.

When I think of the Spartan code- the drive, the austerity, the willingness to put tribe before any personal ambition or desire, how could I not think of MY college cheerleading, cocaine snorting, commitment avoiding, mountain biking PRESIDENT?

I was also very inspired by the, pro-eugenics propaganda, tribalism and Sparta for free Spartans. Not to mention the homoeroticism, disdain for religious irrationality, and standing naked in picture windows. That is so us.

So we are the Spartans, a small committed, simple Greek tribe, and the Persians are... everyone else. And everyone else is superstitious, sexually ambiguous, lustful, deformed, pierced, and creepy. Oh wait. We also have allies. But they're gay or wimps. And I suppose I can't say we are the Spartans. I guess I'm the Malian Ephialtes; what with all my contempt for hegemony.

That's cool too though. At least I know place.

So go see 300 and tell me if you don't see everything as clearly as I did.

My Dad Works In a Shipping Yard

Oh so much to say, but the siren song of withdrawn, dead Germans keeps me from home. Home being someday offering an explanation of the previous post and, if it's still timely and, if I'm not seduced by the honey-sweet lotuses, finishing my love letter to Iraq on our anniversary.

But at least there's this. Something for the first day of spring

Springtime Prayer
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

For flowers that bloom about our feet,
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet,
For song of bird, and hum of bee,
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee!

For blue of stream and blue of sky,
For pleasant shade of branches high,
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For beauty of the blooming trees,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee!

Oh that's not right...- spring has turned out to be very unpoetic with its gloom. This is better.

De spring is sprung,
De grass is riz,
I wonder where dem boidies is?
Dem boids is on de wing,
But dat's absoid,
I always tot de wings wuz on de boid.

Anonymous until I hear otherwise.

Holding my tongue out of need with some difficulty.

Godless European Humanists Prevent Heterosexual Parents from Getting Married or Raising Their Own Children!!

"I just want to live with my family, and be left alone by the authorities and by the courts," she went on, in a hardly audible voice.
BBC

In a testament to the dangers of BIG GOVERNMENT and how far secular humanism will go to undermine the traditional family and its role in raising children, German authorities have taken children from Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski and placed them in state care.

Patrick and Susan have been living together for the past six years and have four children together. They met and fell in love seven years ago but the state has refused to permit their marriage. And now, three of their four children have been taken from them to be raised by the state. Only their youngest, Sofia knows the love and security of being raised by her birth parents.

Even in the ongoing clash of Islamo-Fascism and the West we cannot lose sight of other battles being waged.It should give us pause to thank God for our CHRISTIAN HERITAGE and remind us of what's at stake in the BATTLE between our Christian American Worldview and the Atheistic Secular European.

It can't happen here? If you love AMERICA and JESUS send your friends this reminder of what we're FIGHTING for.

ed- #1 in the multi-part "This Is Our Faith?" Series. It seems hacky enough, even though I didn't include "definately" or "anyways" in it. There should be more time for that.