Blood, Sweat, and Cheers

Well, Rome wasn't built in a day, but our new treehouse sure was. And on the hottest day of the year to boot! Click on the slideshow to check this thing out--complete with a 21-foot lightning rod / firehouse pole. Hat tip to PawPaw for all the hard work (with a little help from me!), but I should tell you that Jacob said, "Whew, that's the hardest I've ever worked from morning to night!" So, hat tip to Drew and Jacob, too; they were strangely willing to go above and beyond the call today. The pictures include neighbors Brandon (11) and Jalen (5).

Jihad: The Musical

Watch the video below (bottom of the page) on the "Daily Mail Tube" of "I Wanna Be Like Osama" from the British production Jihad: The Musical. From their webpage:

Featuring songs such as 'I wanna be like Osama' and the love ballad 'I Only See Your Eyes', JIHAD THE MUSICAL is a madcap gallop through the wacky world of international terrorism; one that puts the powers that be in their place, and that invokes the Blitz spirit that we must laugh at those who seek to intimidate us. Stand back! This is a high-kicking chorus line!

Early word is that it will really blow you away!

We Believe

I have to give you one more from Steve Turner. I was simply going to quote the postscript beginning with "If chance be the Father of all flesh," but the whole poem is quite good and has some juicy nuggets throughout. Substitute "Radical Muslims" or "Islamofacists" or the like to update the "Russians" reference. Very insightful.

Creed

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin

We believe everything is OK

as long as you don't hurt anyone

to the best of your definition of hurt,

and to the best of your knowledge.



We believe in sex before, during, and

after marriage.

We believe in the therapy of sin.

We believe that adultery is fun.

We believe that sodomy’s OK.

We believe that taboos are taboo.



We believe that everything's getting better

despite evidence to the contrary.

The evidence must be investigated

And you can prove anything with evidence.



We believe there's something in horoscopes

UFO's and bent spoons.

Jesus was a good man just like Buddha,

Mohammed, and ourselves.

He was a good moral teacher though we think

His good morals were bad.



We believe that all religions are basically the same-

at least the one that we read was.

They all believe in love and goodness.

They only differ on matters of creation,

sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.



We believe that after death comes the Nothing

Because when you ask the dead what happens

they say nothing.

If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its

compulsory heaven for all

excepting perhaps

Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn



We believe in Masters and Johnson

What's selected is average.

What's average is normal.

What's normal is good.



We believe in total disarmament.

We believe there are direct links between warfare and

bloodshed.

Americans should beat their guns into tractors .

And the Russians would be sure to follow.



We believe that man is essentially good.

It's only his behavior that lets him down.

This is the fault of society.

Society is the fault of conditions.

Conditions are the fault of society.



We believe that each man must find the truth that

is right for him.

Reality will adapt accordingly.

The universe will readjust.

History will alter.

We believe that there is no absolute truth

excepting the truth

that there is no absolute truth.



We believe in the rejection of creeds,

And the flowering of individual thought.



If chance be

the Father of all flesh,

disaster is his rainbow in the sky

and when you hear



State of Emergency!

Sniper Kills Ten!

Troops on Rampage!

Youths go Looting!

Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man

worshipping his maker.

Van Til in Ten Words or Less

Sorry, but this post is hopelessly esoteric for most Daily Mail readers . . .

This evening as we prayed together as a family (shocking and scandalous, I know) we were considering how to pray for the boys' friends. Marian suggested that they pray for them to "know God," to which Drew said, "They know God, they just act like they don't." How Van Tilian!

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

(Might make for a good caption contest?)

"Sinless perfection, OK, but a bit repressive"

I learned of the poetry of Steve Turner from listening to a lecture by Ravi Zacharias (and by the way, if you've never listened to Ravi, please do). I found 12 of Turner's poems about Jesus on this page. After reading them all I liked most of them, but I especially liked the first one listed, "If Jesus Was Born Today." I enjoyed it for it's social commentary, especially how the media would handle Jesus today.

If Jesus was born today
it would be in a downtown motel
marked by a helicopter's flashing bulb.
A traffic warden, working late,
would be the first upon the scene.
Later, at the expense of a TV network,
an eminent sociologist,
the host of a chat show
and a controversial author
would arrive with their good wishes
-the whole occasion to be filmed as part of the
'Is This The Son Of God?' one hour special.
Childhood would be a blur of photographs and speculation
dwindling by his late teens into
'Where Is He Now?' features in Sunday magazines.

If Jesus was thirty today
they wouldn't really care about the public ministry,
they'd be too busy investigating His finances
and trying to prove He had Church or Mafia connections.
The miracles would be explained by
an eminent and controversial magician,
His claims to be God's Son recognised as
excellent examples of Spoken English
and immediately incorporated into
the O-Level syllabus,
His sinless perfection considered by moral philosophers
as, OK, but a bit repressive.

If Jesus was thirty-one today
He'd be the fly in everyone's ointment-
the sort of controversial person who
stands no chance of eminence.
Communists would expel Him, capitalists
would exploit Him or have Him
smeared by people who know a thing or two about God.
Doctors would accuse Him of quackery,
soldiers would accuse Him of cowardice,
theologians would take Him aside and try
to persuade Him of His non-existence.

If Jesus was thirty-two today we'd have to
end it all. Heretic, fundamentalist, literalist,
puritan, pacifist, non-conformist, we'd take Him
away and quietly end the argument.
But the argument would rumble in the ground
at the end of three days and would break out
and walk around as though death was some bug,
saying 'I am the resurrection and the life...
No man cometh to the Father but by me'.
While the magicians researched new explanations
and the semanticists wondered exactly what
He meant by 'I' and 'No man' there would be those
who stand around amused, asking for something
called proof.

©2002 rejesus ltd

No "Ow," Just "Wow"

The boys and I saw this demonstrated on "This Old House" recently. This is no camera trickery, just some amazing technology!

I am very glad that our fashionable fiction seems to be full of a return to paganism, for it may possibly be the first step of a return to Christianity. Neo-pagans have sometimes forgotten, when they set out to do everything the old pagans did, that the final thing the old pagans did was to get christened.

~GK Chesterton~

More Perspective

Gflo sent me an e-mail (where he found this I haven't a clue) about a woman accused of practicing black magic in the majority Hindu Indian state of Jharkhand. In apparently government taught English it read, "Monday 23rd of July 2007 A women was stripped and brutally beaten with hot iron rods after she was branded a witch and held responsible for the death of a woman in a Jharkhand village, police said Monday."

The part that caught my attention was this (again in shaky English): "Witch-hunt cases are rampant in Jharkhand. More than 600 people, mostly women, have been killed in last 10 years after they were charged of practicing black magic." Remember, this is in only one of 28 states and 7 union territories in India.

Now that's a serious witch hunt. Here in the US the best we could do was the year 1692 in Salem, MA. 140 people were accused of witchcraft. Of those, nineteen were hanged, one person was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen people may have died in prison. And 10 years? Fuggeddaboutit! We wimped out after a year and later called for a day of fasting, "That so all of God's people may offer up fervent supplications unto him, that all iniquity may be put away, which hath stirred God's holy jealousy against this land; that He would show us what we know not, and help us, wherein we have done amiss, to do so no more."

Hmmm. I wonder how long it will take the Hindus to tire of hunting witches?

Perspective

So, we're a week into the indictment against P-Funk, Q, T, and Ookie for dog-fighting and related atrocities, and I have to say I've only heard one person say anything about it that has made any sense. Dr. Alveda King, the niece of MLK, issued a statement on July 20 which stated:

"The appalling cruelty to dogs described in the complaint against Michael Vick immediately reminds me of another kind of cruelty that is not only not punished, but is protected by our authorities," said Dr. King. "I'm talking about the incredible cruelty suffered by babies who are stabbed, have limb torn from limb, or have their skulls crushed in the womb by abortionists. The pain these children endure is undoubtedly excruciating, yet we close our eyes and look the other way in the name of 'choice.' Yes, of course we should ensure humane treatment of animals," said Dr. King, "but shouldn't we also humanely treat humans?"

That's unfortunately a decidedly minority view in the world of public figures. Even most abortion opponents wouldn't dare in this climate declare that unborn babies are more important than dogs. Political correctness protects dogs, not babies. Drives me nuts. Also, I am rather impressed that Dr. King used "ensure" instead of "insure;" that's a bright woman. And just to show how big of a disconnect there is in our society on the issue of abortion, check out these numbers from the CDC:

The only thing the chart lacks is a bar for the number of African-Americans "Killed in Iraq," (which would be 339).

Military Blogs

I am late discovering the world of blogs authored by our warrior class. A couple to note: Blackfive and Acute Politics.

Matthew Currier Burden started Blackfive upon learning of the valorous sacrifice of a friend that was not reported by the journalist whose life he saved. The most recent post on Blackfive is from "Uncle Jimbo" (which gave me pause since my kids have an Uncle Jimbo in the USAF) about our beloved Senate majority leader Harry Reid entitled "I'm Surrendering as Fast as I Can."

Acute Politics is a smaller operation from "Teflon Don." His latest post is a primer on Iraqi Security Forces and is a must read if you would like to actually understand what is happening instead of getting reports from journalists who never leave their briefing areas. This is great stuff you really can't get from other sources. As Don says "This blog represents my views and my views alone. Do not misconstrue anything you read here as US policy, goverment opinion, celebrity babblespeak, or anything else."

"Liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men;
to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their hands."
~John Milton~

Jupiter

I had mentioned to some of you that we finally got the boys' (I think it's technically Drew's) telescope set up this past week. This time of year you can look to the south at dusk and prominently see Jupiter. (Looking west you'll see Venus.) And if you train your telescope on Jupiter, you'll see four of his moons as well. Pretty cool for just standing out on the front porch! This is essentially, though probably slightly better than, the view Galileo had when he looked at Jupiter the first time. If you click here, you can see his chart that records the position of the moons.

Another thing you might notice when you look through your telescope is "floaters" (not what you're thinking, Greg). These are detached cones or rods from your retina and they are literally floating around in your aqueous humor. You might have seen them when: 1) looking at bright sky or bright objects on a sunlit day; 2) when reading a book on your lap under a bright light; or, 3) when addressing a golf ball on a bright day. It didn't mention photographers, but it seems like you guys might see them, too.

So, if you haven't looked through a telescope in awhile, try it out. Happy gazing!

Darn Experiments

Men show their character in nothing more clearly
than by what they find laughable. ~Anonymous

Darwinists do best when they simply have ideas in their heads and don't try to verify them in the real world. They can even manage to give their ideas a romantic appeal as they hide behind time and chance. "Surely given enough time with conditions that are just so . . ." Thus, the "infinite monkey theorem" has been employed by Darwinists from time to time as an illustration that this ol' world could indeed have been produced by that magic cocktail of time and chance. Sounds alright, until you try it at home! From leithart.com:

How long will monkeys typing randomly on typewriters take to produce the works of Shakespeare? That's been a way of thinking about Darwinian evolution since who knows where. In 2002, researchers at the Paignton Zoo in England decided to find out. They left a computer terminal in a cage with six monkeys. The results: Mike Phillips, one of the researchers, said "They pressed a lot of S's" and "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it." That is not even to mention the regular urination and defecation on the keyboard. After a month, the monkeys had produced about 5 pages of material, with very little resemblance to Shakespeare.

Now, that's funny right there, I don't care who you are!

Erotic Worship

This should get things stirred up around here and further cement my "NC-17" rating. Some of you regulars won't be with me on this, but it should lead to some good discussion. The subject is worship. Specifically, the erotic character of too much contemporary worship. Over at the Boar's Head Tavern "Pirate" sarcastically writes:

Let’s point out the obvious: replace the buxom blonde babes with stout matrons in their late 50’s, and the worship experience just plain doesn’t happen. Hire an older fellow that walks with a cane as your worship pastor instead of that handsome, young, energetic [bible college] graduate, and Sunday morning just won’t “work.” That should indicate something is wrong. This kind of “worship” isn’t anything new. Maybe fog machines, synthesizers, and colored lights are new, but sensuality and eroticism in worship aren’t. It’s just that in the olden-tymie days, you had to go to a pagan temple to get that. [The Church] did a remarkably bad job of incorporating the pagan culture into their worship. A few things changed with the imperialization of the Church, but the damage had already been done. Christian worship was doomed to centuries of reverence, formality, seriousness, regularity, and deliberation until the 20th century brought Aphrodite back to her rightful place as the orchestrator of our worship.

I'm in essential agreement with that, and I would love to hear someone defend the thesis that typical evengelical worship forms ("praise bands," "worship leaders," "special music solos," etc.) DO NOT come from pagan sources.

Tiger, Golf, and Our Military

If you like any of the above you need to watch this.  Tiger in Special Ops?  It might have happened!  And I love when he lets his caddy take the putt.  Nice event, Tiger. Watch the first six minutes or so of this video . . .

A Word of Caution . . .

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• death (56x)
• abortion (25x)
• kill (11x)
• hell (8x)
• gay (7x)
• pain (5x)
• dangerous (4x)
• gun (3x)
• drugs (2x)
• bomb (1x)

Consider yourself warned.

Meet the Carolina Chocolate Drops

I was introduced to these guys this past weekend. They play "Old Timey Music from the Carolina Piedmont." Click below to watch "Sourwood Mountain." YouTube has better videos of them, but I like the line "Big dog bark, the little one bite you" in this one. That's certainly my experience; the only dog that ever bit me was one with a definite Napoleon complex. You can hear more of the Drops here, like "Viper Mad," which has another good line: "Good tea is my weakness." Amen!

I found this great interview with the band which was part of an event at the Atlanta History Center. "We’re trying not to make a big agenda, we just play the music. You can see that we’re black, we’re a string band, and that should be enough of a message." Very interesting.

It's not easy being green!

At least that's what color I think this shriveled up frog was once upon a time. This guy was found on my route between Rack Room Shoes and Lane Bryant. He appears to have been victimized by a work order in some office somewhere: his leaky faucet was fixed and his water supply was gone! A tough break in the middle of a drought!

Happy Independence Day!

Our morning July 4th celebration in Oxford. You'll notice that #2 son is missing. I'm sure he would love to tell you why.