Chamblee54

PG stumbled onto an amazing piece of work christmas day. The post is titled “Relationship Evangelism”. The concept is creating a friendship with someone, so that you can convert them to Jesus worship. This is not a new strategy, and is more user friendly than convert or die.
This is not to say that RE is an ethical matter. There is this quote to consider: ” So if you’re a Christian, keen to fulfil your part in the Great Commission, how exactly do you implement this strategy? Well, first you need to overcome any scruples about duplicity. After all, this approach means that you will be presenting yourself as ‘trustworthy friend’, and yet — thanks to your hidden agenda —you are anything but. “
The post about RE does not specify where you meet your friend. Obviously, it is not church. That leaves the other sources of friends…work, school, neighborhoods, bars, and others. In some of these, there is no other activity to get in the way of your proselytizing. However, some of these institutions have purposes, and you may be working against these goals if you mix business with Jesus. If you meet someone at work, and try to leverage that relationship into an evangelical opportunity, then having a profitable business can come in second place.
Ok, so you get to be friends with someone you play softball with. He thinks you are his pal because you enjoy his company. The next step is to sneak references to religion into your conversation. To quote from the text: “As your ‘friend’, a non-believer will be happy to listen to — and possibly even come to share — your views about all sorts of things, including: real estate trends, the joys of bringing up children, a recent movie you saw, and Jesus being the Son of God. Ideally, they won’t even see that last one coming — until it’s too late! ““For example, you may want to drop in the occasional ‘God-talk’, preferably in the most innocuous, casual fashion: “Oh yeah, that restaurant is near our church.” “This time with you has been such a blessing.””I was just praying the other day . . . .”This approach is so subtle that the non-believer is unlikely to stop the flow of conversation.”
The tract does stop to consider the ethics of this. “It’s worth noting that evangelicals do have ways of justifying the strategies above… Why? Because they really do care about non-believers. They don’t want them to go to Hell. ” It is the catch 22 of Jesus worship…the scheme for life after death. This justifies all the rudeness, deceit, and disrespect of evangelism…if you don’t agree with us, you are going to go to hell.
This does not speak well for Jesus. After a lifetime of this approach to religion, PG wishes to never hear the word Jesus again. This is not going to happen. Jesus worshipers do not respect those who do not agree with their religion, and seldom miss an opportunity to shove Jesus in the face of non believers. This is one result of having a scheme for life after death as the focus of your religion.
Pictures for this entertainment are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

The following story might be a satire. This Christmas presentation is a repost
Egyptian grooms can now complain to the Consumer Protection Agency if their brides “are missing a hymen, or are otherwise faulty,” according to the new law.
If the marital product, also known as “woman”, is found without the highly-prized tissue still intact, bride consumers can return the damaged commodity within 7 days of trying it out, in which case they will then receive compensation from its manufacturer, or “parent”.
Contrary to unpopular belief, Egyptian women are expected to preserve their hymens at least until their wedding day.
The new law is a response to a growing trend of more and more marital products falsely presenting themselves as first-hand goods, when in fact other consumers had tested them out secretly before. “Imagine spending LE200,000 on a new car then finding out some other prick had taken it for a ride before you?” says Moneer El Modage3, an avid car collector and Middle East hymen expert.
This sentiment is shared by a majority of Egyptian bride consumers and manufacturers, known for often violently disposing of marital products if the treasured bubble wrap goes missing before the so-called “entry night”.
“The manufacturer of my ex tried to tell me my purchase was damaged only due to frequent horseback riding in its past,” said one disgruntled bride consumer, “but in the end I got a refund and bought a new model with a longer expiration date.”
Saudi conservative leader Imar Wekhimar, a frequent visitor to Egypt, praised the new law, though with some reservations. “Quality control in marital products is long overdue,” he said between sips of fermented grapes, “I just wish they extended it to young boys too.”
Not all Egyptians are happy with the new law, however – particularly the XX-based gender. A minority of extreme “liberals” are arguing that the so-called marital products are in fact conscious, claiming that consumers should be more concerned with what’s inside the head-shaped region, rather than obsess about the one time-use tissue.
“Ha!” says El Modage3, “What’s next? Stop sexually harassing them in the streets?!” Justifiably, El Modage3 and other consumers are worried that attaching any real value to “women” themselves may interfere with the ongoing 7000 year old plan for men to rule the universe.

PG has nothing to say about Christmas. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

The story below is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. There is a guest appearance by Gerald Rudolph Ford, and his women. Chamblee54 is skeptical about reports regarding the gender of the lead reindeer. PG suspects that a female would put powder on that nose.
Someone posted a bit of revisionism about a holiday classic Tuesday. As he sees it, “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” is about racism.
In a bit of yuletime synchronicity, the urban mythbusters at Snopes posted a piece about Rudolph the same day. It seems as though the Rudolph story was originally written for the Montgomery Ward Stores. The idea was to print a Christmas booklet to give to customers. A staff writer named Robert L. May was picked for the job.
Originally, there were concerns about the red nose, and the connection to heavy drinking. At the time, the original meaning of “merry christmas” had been forgotten.( Merry meant intoxicated, and a merry christmas was a drunken one.) The booklet was released anyway, and was a big hit with shoppers.
Mr. May had a brother in law named Johnny Marks, who was musically gifted. Mr. Marks wrote the song, and somehow or another Gene Autry came to sing it. A story ( which PG heard once, but cannot find a source for) had Mr. Autry doing a recording session. The session went very smoothly, and the sides scheduled to be recorded were finished early. There was a half hour of studio time paid for. Someone produced copies of “Rudolph”, gave them to the musicians, and the recording was knocked out. It became a very big hit.
Gene Autry had a radio show, “Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch”. He created the “cowboy code”. Number five gets our attention today. Under this code, the cowboy must:
1. never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. always tell the truth.
4. be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.
5. not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. help people in distress.
7. be a good worker.
8. keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.
9. respect women, parents and his nation’s laws.
10. be a patriot.
“Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” has become a beloved standard, without the troubling religious implications of many holiday songs. It is the second biggest selling record of all. The only song to sell more is “White Christmas”. You just can’t get away from race.

There is enough talk about Christmas already. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

With one day before it was due, PG finished reading Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor , by Brad Gooch. The author is a professor of English at William Patterson University in New Jersey. He spares no citations, to show where he gets his information.
Chamblee54 has written before about Miss O’Connor , and repeated the post a year later. There is a radio broadcast of a Flannery O’Connor lecture. ( The Georgia accent of Miss O’Connor is much commented on in the book. To PG, it is just another lady speaking.) The pictures for today’s post are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Mary Flannery O’Connor was born March 25, 1925 in Savannah GA. The local legend is that she was conceived in the shadow of St. John the Baptist Cathedral, a massive facility on Lafayette Square. Her family did leave nearby, and her first school was just a few steps away. This is also a metaphor for the role of the Catholic Church in her life. Mary Flannery was intensely Catholic, and immersed in the scholarship of the church. This learning was a large part of her life. How she got from daily mass, to writing stories about Southern Grotesque, is one mystery at the heart of Flannery O’Connor.
Ed O’Connor doted on his daughter, but had to take a job in Atlanta to earn a living. His wife Regina and daughter Mary Flannery moved with him, to a house behind Christ The King Cathedral. Mr. O’Connor’s health was already fading, and Mother and Daughter moved in with family in Milledgeville. Ed O’Connor died, of Lupus Erythematosus, on February 1, 1941.
Mary Flannery went to college in Milledgeville, and on to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She dealt with cold weather, went to Mass every day, and wrote. She was invited to live at an artists colony called Yaddo, in upstate New York. She lived for a while with Robert and Sally Fitzgerald in Connecticut, all while working on her first novel, “Wise Blood”. In 1950, she was going home to Milledgeville for Christmas, and had been feeling poorly. She went to the hometown doctor, who thought at first that the problem was rheumatoid arthritis. The illness of Flannery O’Connor was Lupus Erythematosus.
Miss O’Connor spent much of that winter in hospitals, until drugs were found that could help. She moved, with her mother, to a family farm outside Milledgeville, which she renamed Andalusia. She entered a phase of her life, with the Lupus in relative remission, and the drugs firing her creative fires, where she wrote the short stories that made her famous.
Another thing happened when she was recuperating. Flannery was reading the Florida “Market Bulletin”, and saw an ad for “peafowl”, at sixty five dollars a pair. She ordered a pair, and they soon arrived via Railway Express. This was the start of the peacocks at Andalusia, a part of the legend.
During this period of farm life and writing, Flannery had several friends and correspondents. There was the “Bible Salesmen”, Erik Langkjaer, who was probably the closest thing Flannery had to a boyfriend. Another was Betty Hester, who exchanged hundreds of letters with Miss O’Connor. ( Mr. Gooch says that Betty Hester committed suicide in 1998. That would be consistent with PG stumbling onto an estate sale of Miss Hester in that time frame.) This took place under the stern eye of Regina O’Connor, the no nonsense mother-caregiver of Flannery.
The book of short stories came out, and Flannery O’Connor became famous. She was also dependent on crutches, and living with a stern mother. There were lectures out of town, and a few diverse personalities who became her friend. She went to Mass every day, and collected books by Catholic scholars. Flannery was excited by the changes in the church started by Pope John XXIII, and in some ways could be considered a liberal. ( She supported Civil Rights, in severe contrast to her mother.)
In 1958, Flannery O’Connor went to Europe, including a trip to the Springs at Lourdes. Her cousin Katie Semmes (the daughter of Captain John Flannery, CSA) pushed Flannery hard to go to the springs, to see if it would help the Lupus. Flannery was reluctant…” I am one of those people who could die for his religion sooner than take a bath for it“. When the day for the visit came, Flannery took a token dip in the waters. Her condition did improve, briefly. ( It is worth speculating here about the nature of Flannery’s belief, which was apparently more intellectual than emotional. Could it be that, if she was more persuaded by the mystical, emotional side of the church, and taken the healing waters more seriously, that she might have been cured?)
At some point in this story, her second novel came out, and the illness blossomed. Much of 1964 was spent in hospitals, and she got worse and worse. On August 3, 1964, Mary Flannery O’Connor died,

PG got this as an email recently. It must be true. Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Holiday spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately and go next door where they’re serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can, and quickly — it’s rare. You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It’s a treat — enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s later than you think — it’s almost Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on; make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they’re made with skim milk or whole milk. If it’s skim, pass. Why bother? It’s like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Holiday party is to eat other people’s food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year’s. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you’ll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don’t budge. Have as many as you can before they become the center of attention. They’re like a beautiful pair of shoes–if you leave them behind, you’re never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple, Pumpkin, Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don’t like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it’s loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards!
10. One final tip: If you don’t feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven’t been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.
11. Remember this motto to live by: “Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate and wine in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO HOO what a ride!” .

Once a week, bloggingheads.tv has a feature called Science Saturday. Some of the best feature John Horgan and George Johnson. They are pals, and say “oh really” a lot. This past week they discussed the business of scientific research, how big money can corrupt the findings. It makes cents sense … when you get government grants to fund your research, it is in your best interests to get the results the government wants. Or, if your employer stands to make billions of dollars from selling a new drug, you want to “prove” that the drug works.
Perhaps it is a semantic issue. People often say prove, when what they should say is indicate. Prove is a murky legalistic concept, full of smoke and mirrors. Indicate is what the numbers on the screen say.
John got mixed up in a controversy about this recently. While discussing this, he quoted an scientific journal to about Why Most Published Research Findings Are False . This caught PG’s ear, and made him put down his photo editing, and make a comment. ( Those pictures from the War between the States have waited 145 years. A few more minutes is not going to hurt.) This comment resulted.
chamblee54 wrote on 12/18/2010 at 02:10 PM Re: Science Saturday: Discovery and Invention (John Horgan & George Johnson) John makes a bold statement .
Further research comes to the same conclusion.
It seems as if an author, writing behind a paywall , wrote about corruption of the scientific method. At the end, he wrote “Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe.” ( John says it here. )
In a touch of irony, George begins the discussion by recalling a visit to California, and a report on the medical marijuana scene. Marijuana is a good example of the government deciding the results, and then commissioning a study to “prove” what had already been decided. If your lab depends on Uncle Sugar for funding, then your study is going to show that Reefer makes you turn purple.
When PG was in tenth grade, he had a geometry teacher. She had participated in LSD experiments (and said a shot of whiskey would do more for you.) Basic geometry is dependent on proofs, or a series of statements that show a theorem to be true. (There is a difference between a theory and a hypothesis.) A foundation concept of geometry is the Pythagorean theorem. This teacher said it was possible to disprove the Pythagorean theorem.
A couple of years later, PG grew shoulder length hair, and went to visit his uncle. The relative was known for being to the right of Herbert Hoover, and was not amused by PG’s fashion statement.
The uncle got into the firewater, and would say, over and over,
“What are you trying to proooove with your long hair?”

These rules for holiday dinners are courtesy of MargaretandHelen. It is too late for this Thanksgiving, but not for Christmas, and all the holidays in the future. (Rules 8 & 11 mention a certain celebrity. Chamblee54 considers this celebrity to be getting too much free publicity, and will not make the problem worse at this blog. If you want to read rules 8 & 11, use the link supplied above.)The pictures are from the past, courtesy of The Library of Congress
1. If it jiggles, slap a girdle on it or leave it at home. I am not kidding Cloe. One step inside my door with anything made from Jello and it will be your last step. I have about 50 pounds on you so don’t test me.
2. Rhonda. My house. Your pets. Never the twain shall meet.
3. Mary. My sofa. Your kid’s feet. Never the twain shall meet.
4. I have banned cans of soda. Two liter bottles of soda only. I am tired of throwing away half full cans of soda. If you are two young to lift a 2 liter bottle of soda to fill a glass, you are too young to be drinking soda un-supervised.
5. At age 84 and 11 months, I have had my picture taken more than enough times to fill any memory photo album. The digital era has made it too easy to take way too many useless pictures. Point one camera in my direction this year and I can promise you that your camera will be used to stuff something other than the turkey. When I am gone, feel free to remember me with pictures from my best year – 1962.
6. Texting and driving is just plain stupid. Texting and eating Thanksgiving dinner, however, is a crime punishable by no dessert.
7. Vegetarians really should consider Thanksgiving as a holiday from vegetarianism.
9. The Longhorns are having a difficult year. Your grandfather is aware of that. No need to remind him. Trust me on this one.
10. My Democrats are having a difficult year. I am aware of that. Feel free to remind me and I will, in turn, remind you of what I think of the current Republican Party. Trust me on this one.

The inbox had a comment, for moderation, of a recent post about Condoleezza Rice. The comment had the sound of spam… “Awesome post here.It’s very nice and interesting.Will you post in future regarding Church Mass Times?Keep sharing!”. The source?  Churchmasstimes. Catholic spam!
The post about Miss Rice (“We didn’t worry about weapons of mass destruction, particularly, in the hands of Russians.”) attracted two more bits of spam, which were caught by WordPress. One was from afghanhoundtraining , from a post about “Puppy House Training – Get All Information You Need to Pull Through – Find Your Training Lifelines”.
The other bit of obvious spam is from world spinner, with a feature on the ever popular Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Above a flattering picture of Mr. A is an animated ad for Ford automobiles. The comment was “Here at World Spinner we are debating the same thing…” This same comment was left for “quotes about quotes” .
Getting back to Churchmasstimes, PG is impressed that a fuddy duddy institution like the Catholic Church would use spam to promote itself. CMT is an interactive device, where you enter a zip code in a field for the mass nearest you. ( To a Baptist, mass refers to the lady standing up in the pew in front of you.) The home page shows the mass times for St. John in El Dorado KS.
PG entered his zip code in the appropriate facility, and four possibilities came up on the first page. With names like “Our Lady of the Assumption” and “Immaculate Heart of Mary”, you are not being directed to a grocery store. “Immaculate Heart of Mary” is down the street from the Baptist church PG grew up in. It had the obnoxious habit of ending their sunday mass at the same time as the Baptist service, causing traffic headaches on Briarcliff Road.
In the corner of the home page is a sepia picture of a pregnant woman, with the slogan “Do you believe that life begins at conception? Click here to take the survey”. It just wouldn’t be Catholic if you don’t whine about abortion. PG has written about abortion . He is horrified by abortion, and grossed out by the rhetoric of the Catholic Church. If Catholics would devote the same attention to contraception, and adoption, that the expend on anti abortion noise, they would save more babies.

This “meme” was popping up on Facebook, like kudzu in a vacant lot. My top ten words of 2010 . When you click on the link, you get a hideous request to distribute your basic human information to hackers in Belarus. PG chose to enter the phrase in a google search, which may possibly be just a damaging to his privacy. This search yields 193 million results in 0.19 seconds. What follows is the top ten, top ten words of the year. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The grand marshall of this parade is the ever fabulous JoeMyG-d. This is a knockoff of a story at The Global Language Monitor regarding the most used words in the worldwide English language media. The number one word this year is spillcam, followed by vuvulezla. Among the top ten phrases of the year almost over is Lady Gaga, Man up, and teachable moment. In an update, the New Oxford American Dictionary has anointed refudiate as the 2010 word of the year.
Trying harder at number two is Cari Kamm . The blond Kamm has a picture, and strongly worded copyright statement on her sidebar. Her most used word of the year rhymes with dove.
The third result is from Linkedin , which was not born in a log cabin. The theme here is “10 most overused buzzwords in your LinkedIn profile” (redundancy alert). The m.o.b. this year is these profiles is extensive experience. A line goes from this word, to a dot over Peoria, IL.
Number four is from Runner’s World, where the number one word is miles. Number five is from associatedcontent , with another feature on refudiate. The bottom line is more name recognition for the P woman. She is living proof, there is no bad publicity. This page has an ad for a book by Keith Olberman, who needs to lose those glasses.
Lemondrop tells the tale of the The Global Language Monitor . “Oy. We kind of hate these. First, “refudiate“… is not so much a word as the opposite of one. “Spillcam” just serves as a reminder of that time when the entire Gulf Coast got ruined. “Vuvuzela” represents just about the most annoying sound in the history of sports. … Let’s all work extra hard to make 2011 a banner year for Top Words, by bringing back phrases like “free puppies” and “banner year.””
Yoursonglyrics must have paid google for it’s placement on this list. The page is a collection of lyrics from current songs, with no indication of what is the most popular in 2010. One of the songs featured is “Yeah3x” by Chris Brown, another teflon celebrity.
For number eight, the Washington Post regurgitates the report of The Global Language Monitor. Elyrics has an auto start ad for “Avatar”on dvd. Below that is a list of the top twenty five songs.
If you are tired of reading this, here is number ten. It is about a popular word game, Scrabble . The highest scoring word (without double or triple tiles) is muzjiks. The word refers to Russian peasants. It cops 29 natural points.

A facebook friend posted a link to “Condoleezza Rice Smacks Down Katie Couric’s Insulting, Ignorant Depiction of Iraq War”. This referred to a video posted at breitbart.tv The type below the video says “Secretary Rice gives the greatest, most thorough and intelligent response to the criticisms of the decision to go to war in Iraq that has ever been made. As an added bonus, she also makes Katie Couric look shrill and uninformed.”
The first part of the discussion regards WMD, what the administration knew, and when did they know it. Miss Rice maintains the “preponderance of evidence” was that Iraq had WMD. It is an established fact that chemical weapons were used during the Iran-Iraq war.
What is not discussed here was the fact that WMD was the excuse for the invasion, not the reason. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was quoted saying “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.”
In 1941, The United States was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. A declaration of war was issued within a week. There was no settling on an issue for bureaucratic reasons.
Miss Kouric asked Miss Rice if there was another rationale for going to war, other than WMD. Miss Rice did not answer the question, but instead repeated that the administration had good reason to believe there were WMD.
At the 3:21 point, Miss Rice makes an amazing comment. “We didn’t worry about weapons of mass destruction, particularly, in the hands of Russians. The Russians had, a hundred thousand, a hundred times the weapons capability of Saddam Hussein.” To anyone who remembers the cold war, this is a jaw dropper. PG grew up expecting to be nuked by the evil commies. And now we find out that our leaders were not worried. Maybe the communist threat was a lie.
The last part of the interview was an exercise in rhetoric. The question is whether you prefer the people of Iraq putting together the “first confessional democracy in the middle east” to a nuclear arms race between Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Never mind the threat to Iran posed by Iraq ( and vice versa). Now, Iran is stronger than ever.
The issue of the price tag for this war is not addressed. Unknown thousands of dead Iraqis, thousands of maimed and killed Americans, millions of refugees, and the annihilation of the American economy. Yes, we may be better off with Saddam Hussein, but can we afford the change we made?
Pictures for tonight’s amusement are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.