Wonderful Matters

There's that bumper sticker, you know, "Stupidity Should Be Painful." I actually think it is painful, it's just so many stupid people simply smile through the agony. I saw a meme the other day, something along those lines, something like, "When you die, after you're dead you don't know you're dead and others have to feel the pain. It's the same thing with stupidity." I think that's the tragic part about stupid people. It's painful for them and  for others, and they don't even know it. I was reading tonight in the Word, and came across one of those several places where the Bible's version of these memes appears. Really, the Bible says a lot about stupidity. This one was originally in the sixth chapter of Isaiah. There it is again in the 13th chapter of Matthew: "People don't understand when they could understand, and they remain really stupid." Really, that's about what it says. Check it out, you'll ...

When Tupper Saussy was thinking about when to release his latest work, Gods for the Godless , he mentioned that the most opportune time would be when things happening were approaching "critical mass." I knew what he meant by that, but he passed away in 2007 without ever getting to the point when that would be actualized. ( Here's a page with a link to the original material for that book.) Still, I wonder, when will things reach critical mass? When will that happen, perhaps when people will either actually come to Christ or just flat-out ask God for rocks to drop on them to keep them from even having to face His judgment? No matter, we all will anyway. Everyone is resurrected. Just depends on whether you're being resurrected into life or into judgment. I could mention a few of the things I see going on out there. There's the gal who today rammed her car into the White House barricade, and was gunned down with a child in the backseat (who apparently was okay)...

There is a quite famous Monty Python bit called "The Parrot Sketch." A John Cleese character enters a pet shop and confronts the clerk, played by Michael Palin, with a complaint. The parrot he'd bought from the shop not long before was dead. The Palin character is in complete denial about this, insisting that that it was "just restin'." The Cleese character must go to great lengths to demonstrate that indeed, the parrot is dead. I think about this sketch whenever I see virtually every single World inhabitant completely oblivious to the truths about the way their beloved World works, even in the most vitriolic censure of that World. I would otherwise dismiss such behavior as the typical way of those inhabitants -- it is what they do, they are hopelessly blind, they refuse to be made to see -- all the rest of it. What gets me is that so many of them claim to be or try to comport themselves as good wholesome Christians. I just shake my head. Today the...

This morning before school started, a student came into my classroom with an urgent request. She asked me to watch a 30-minute YouTube video about a warlord in Uganda who is involved in child trafficking. She said his name was Joseph Kony, and she mentioned that she really understood the stuff we'd been discussing in class about food being used as a weapon in places like Africa. I was honored to hear of an instance when my students are actually taking to heart the things they are learning in my classroom. I promised her I'd take a peek at it later. What was funny was that another student in a class during the day mentioned that he'd heard something about this "Joseph Kony" thing, and wondered what it was about. I'd thought about my visit with the student this morning, and wondered what kind of crusade this may be turning into. After classes were over and my student conferences were over, I pulled it up to watch. It is a slickly made but poorly arranged ...

Superstar Superactor Superhunk Super-bring-attention-to-bad-things-in-really-rotten-places-across-the-globe-guy George Clooney had his superpersona splashed all over the cover of this week's Time magazine. Inside was a full spread about him, some more of him, and a few other things about him. As I make a feeble attempt at humor here, please know that I don't dislike Clooney at all. I actually like his movies, I do think he's a fine performer, and all the rest of it. In fact, with the wife and kids out seeing the grandfolks and me with a league basketball game late tonight, I rented Michael Clayton which my wife had already seen with a friend. I haven't seen it yet but I plan to just before my game. I get the idea this is about a lawyer who gets mixed up in some kind of shenanigans that high level people get mixed up in, and he's looking for the truth that others don't want him to see, and there are some twists and thrills and all that. I also know about the tag...

Having a blog to augment a webzine is awesome. Here is where I get to lay it all out, even though I hope to do that at the 'zine only a bit more formally. The difference with the blog is that I can just talk-- you may get a bit more of me. I want to talk in this post about my latest piece. (It's here if you haven't seen it yet.) I went into it thinking I'd have that baby down and out and bam there it is. But as I got going with it, it just started to overwhelm me. I just found so much stuff that amplifies the harrowing reality of The War. I just had the damndest time leaving things out. So here with the blog I can add stuff, and with the 'zine at future dates I can go into other areas of The War. One such area that I'm thinking about looking into is a great theological question that has certainly been addressed before, and that is, "Does Jesus Christ commit violent acts?" I mean, what's the deal with that question? Well, that's for later. For ...

Over Christmas break I was at my mother-in-law's, and during a down time browsed through a Time magazine she had from the holiday season last year , 2004. The cover story was something about the birth of Jesus, but what caught my attention was the last page essay by Simon Robinson commenting on efforts by gatherings of renowned musical artists such as Band Aid to sell original Christmas music and use the proceeds to advance African relief efforts. The previous home page piece on my website The Catholicist Nation was a critique of One.org's valiant but futile attempts to bring prosperity to Africa. (You may read that critique here ) I brought up items that were confirmed by Robinson's piece, and I just wanted to draw attention to them. He elaborates on something we should all know but don't get, that the real issue is not environmental but spiritual, it is their sin that causes the lack, not the other way around. He says, "the continent's famines are caused by ...

I was thinking about the situation in the African country of Niger, currently enduring a famine the media typically term a "humanitarian crisis." As I looked at the sparse attention given to it, I noted how much even the most well-intentioned people just don't get it . I'm going to go out on a limb and assert-- I know, this is daring-- that the reason for the abject ignorance is because they all refuse to look in the one place where they'd get it , and that place is in the pages of the Bible. What does the Bible tell us in light of what is going on all around us? It tells us that God put Cain in charge of the World System to mitigate the sin of those who refuse to put their trust in Him. (You can read about it in chapter four of the book of Genesis.) The way Cain and his agents do that is 1. Build a city and command allegience to receive the benefits of its glory. 2. Entice people into destitution in order to rescue them. 3. Gratify the wide demand for violence am...