SHARKS CAUSE GNIMRAW LABOLG!!!

(Technical Update: UTyoube is finicky about letting me embed the shark vid. Sorry for massive post/repost/riposte efforts)

I have, polumerws kai polutropos, tried to take Global Warming seriously. What I have retained from my vague occasional efforts is a persistent agnosticism and impression the issue is funny.

What other issue brings together Al Gore, the Toyota Prius, and Madonna?

But now it gets better. Apparently, SHARKS are the new Whales. Not only are we killing them off, they're much cuddlier than we've always presumed when we hear about them eating surfers. Apparently this video depicts a Great White Act of Love.

That's so CUTE! And it causes gnimraw labolg! According to this upcoming hug-a-shark-umentary.

And ignorant indigenous peoples who kill sharks to eat or sell don't love sharks or mother earth nearly enough. At least I think that's the implied message.

When American Football gets its Rugby on

Why does it take division III football to get plays like this?






Notice that the last defender misses because he defends the man who should have received a lateral and, in the surprise of the play, the ball carrier holds onto it.

Playing in the dirt.

I've made a connection that I can't recall ever hearing.

Jesus, confronted in John 8 with the woman caught in adultery, stoops and draws in the dirt.

Well, the word usually translated "wrote" is from the root grapho. Usually it means to write. There is an Attic sense of the word as meaning "to indict." That's interesting. But it gets better. Grapho can also mean "to draw."

The word translated "dirt" is "ge". And, you guessed it, ge can mean dirt. And land. And earth.

Jesus drew in the earth.

Peeking at the Septuagint, Genesis 2:7 says God made (plasso, too bad it wasn't grapho) man from the dust (xous) of the earth (ge).

Everyone I've heard fixates on what Jesus wrote in the dirt. We don't know, not that that keeps most people from guessing. I think the gesture is entirely symbolic and meant to be understood as such. Jesus, confronted with snarky tempters, gives the harshest response possible: By playing in the dirt he says, "I created you." I'm tempted to read into it, "I created you and this is the hardest test for me you can think of?" We might also throw in an overtone of "To dust you shall return."

Jesus' tempters don't get it and he lowers himself to make a response that is just as neutralizing but less profound.

Increasingly I think that symbolism is the key to understanding the Bible. Dig the symbols and understand them and you understand the Bible.

Time to go see if I can find any commentaries that associate Gen 2:7 with John 8:6.

Rowling's Dumbledore Outing Suspect?

A columnist for Time smells a rat in Jo Rowling's Outing of Albus. John Cloud is gay and isn't impressed with this post hoc affair. He thinks Rowling's admission makes Dumbledore out to be a wimp, and an unfulfilled wimp at that.

Cloud's last comment is an insightful one: he says that, ala StarTrek, characters eventually become the property of the fans, whose fan fiction takes over and builds a "full expression of diversity" in the pantheon of the created world. Eventually we can expect Harry Potter fan works where homosexuality finds robust and abundant expression.

But here's the hitch perhaps: Rowling has tipped all the homosexual attention towards the character who is noblest, brightest, and pretty radically celibate. She has outed one character, and by implication protected all the rest. What fan is brave and credible enough to write the gay romance of Albus Dumbledore?

My impression: the issue is going to fade out of public interest pretty fast.

I've been wondering if Rowling had an ulterior motive for busting Dumbledore out of the closet. She's been known to spin things and manipulate audiences to her own ends.

The Granger says that if Rita Skeeter's expose on Dumbledore didn't find a relationship to expose there can't be one plausibly created. The Granger has many helpful things to say here.

Regular Heroes Blogging Abandoned

4 episodes into Season II, Heroes has run out of content that appears blogworthy.


Maybe Silar will end up as a good guy.


Maybe no dead or wrong character is ever really dead, wrong, or dead wrong.


Maybe weak character dynamics are all part of the master plan and not merely ruining the strong ensemble cast. If only the writers had less influence than the casting director. We get it that Cheerleader and Dad aren't getting along. We get it that Parkman and Suresh don't know how to help a child with nightmares. We get it that Brother Cure and Sister Ill are running from the law and for the border. What we don't get is appreciable plot progression.

Josh K informs me the goal is to create so many characters and plots that they can split and spin off the content into multiple series. I don't know where he gets this but he would know. Look for my flagging interest to increasingly flag.

So, my commitment to blogging every episode is officially over. It might resume but those of you waiting with baited breath should probably switch baits.

Polls are open

I've added the Poll widget, because it's been statistically proven that polls produce statistics.



Rest assured that no important issues will be decided (or raised) by this poll, so click on up to the site to register your most important opinion. And even if you don't live in Chicago vote early and vote often.

KC, though I knew thee not I loved thee

I'm laid over in Kansas City. I've never been here before as far as I can remember.

But I love KC. Free WiFi in the terminal. Including this airport the number I know of with free WiFi is... one.

Airports, let's see more of this please. Not all of us are flush business travelers who think $6 per hour is affordable internet access.

Heroes S2E3 struggles to enthuse

Dear Heroes,

You should not be a soap opera. Episode 3 features three distinct instances of snogging and so many plotlines that no progress really occurs in any of them.

Your strong characters (all of them) are getting watered down by lack of exposure. Please find happy endings for most character threads pronto so that our interest may be held by a character-driven plot actually moving forward. It's hardly a cliff-hanger when each episode only moves an inch closer to the edge.

Losing interest, struggling to care, and this is only episode 3. Could you at least promise that the world will be destroyed by some cataclysm unless the Heroes stop it? We're sort of hanging on for too little at this point.

I'm taking a ticket to post at some future point about the violent nature of progress. It seems a lot more could be done on this front.

Anglican post of contention postponed

I just posted that I was going to post a post about a problem of Anglican contention post-haste.

Brief reflection results in the postponement of said post. It may resurface but I need to ask some wiser folks about it first.

Cheers.

Post Script: Please suggest other uses for the word "post" that do not refer to mail or a stick in the ground.

A "must" feed for your reader

For some time now I've had the feed from Compass Direct News, a scrupulous watchdog entity that monitors the persecuted church.

If you check blogs at all or subscribe to any feeds whatsoever please add Compass Direct to your lists. (Feed) I've become a less complacent Christian as a result of their updates. Nearly all reports come from sharpest edge of the clash. The feed also appears in the sidebar of this blog.

A recent heart-wrencher is here. Imagine wondering if your daughters are alive because you converted to Christianity and your dead wife's Muslim relatives enlisted government support to abduct said daughters. Or don't imagine, I certainly can't.

See my next post for the best articulation I can muster of the conflict between liberal Christians and persecuted Christians.

Heroes S2E2 gets religion? (Spoilers)

Heroes S2E2 might be listening to me?

Mine is the only blog I read that discusses Heroes. I did see a TV Guide article today in a bookstore with a shocking number of spoilers, but mostly I'm trying to keep my Heroes palate clean for bestest first impressions. Yeah, I'm not lazy or ignorant, I'm a purest. Yeah.

My central beef with the show has been that its materialist bent ignores interesting metaphysical questions driven by religion. But episode 2 throws the questions up. The Haitian thinks God is cursing him.

The Maya Herrera character is most interesting. She is some kind of Black Madonna. Note the poisonous weeping of her impassioned self. Her brother, with unsubtle christological overtures is her bulwark and antidote. "Maya" is almost as subtle a name as "Hiro". She is plainly the genetic progeny and victim of Mayan-Marian syncretist religiousism. Her savior-brother thinks medicine/Science is the solution. We'll see.

Where is all this going? I think the eventual resolution will see religion as vacuous. If attention to religion continues, which I'm not counting on.

Other thought: We have a burgeoning pantheon of characters. We have no gay characters except, apparently, ex-Cheerleader's season 1 sidekick who was not special. For a Hollywood production that has to be intentional. Is this a dig? Can you not be a Hero if you don't contribute to gene-upping humanity?

There She Goes...Where?

Today, on a gelato date, I heard a cover of The La's There She Goes play over the radio. With a female vocalist.

My date-wife asked me what I thought the song was about and I gave the answer I've heard: it's about main-lining heroin.

The W'pedia, which you shouldn't ever cite in papers, not that I have, avers the cover is by Sixpence None the Richer. And it's 8 years old. So much for breaking news blogging. Article here.

The La's have been a bit vague about the exact nature of the perkily redundant tune. It's at least ambiguous. Which makes it a curious cover for Sixpence, doesn't it? Especially with a female vocalist? I don't listen to their stuff but I understand that they love Jesus.

Curious.