Thirteen apologies
I was priding myself on the easiness of this Thirteen when Netscape crashed, sending my first nine into electronic oblivion. Oh, well. So much for ‘easy.’ Save early, save often.
For each of the following apologies, guess the sinner; I’ll begin with the jackass who inspired today’s post. Answers in the comments.
Give Him hell, Kurt
From Cat’s Cradle, the Bokononist Calypso:
Someday, someday this world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why go right ahead and scold Him. He’ll just smile and nod.
Kurt Vonnegut died today at 84. When I was a kid growing up in the 70s, Vonnegut introduced me to the Big Questions — fate, free will, the truth and falsehood of religion. So much. I have warm feelings towards him, much as I do for any wise teacher.
Rest in peace.
Sorry for the brief post, but my Internet is down, and it’s a bitch blogging on the Blackberry. See ya tomorrow.
D
Blogiversary TWO (& a contest)
Yup, it’s Balls and Walnuts’s’s second blogiversary, or close enough: April 9, 2005 was my first real post.
For my second blogiversary, I’ve thawed out some birthday cake. Looks mighty warm, in fact.
(Um. In case you don’t remember my birthday cake, it’s not precisely safe for work; but you’ll have to go below the fold to find out about the contest, now, won’t you?)
what a gal!
So in this dream, Karen and I are at a resort, and Robert Redford comes over to our table. He wants to have sex with Karen and he’ll pay us a million bucks for the privilege. We’re all “heck yeah!” And before you know it, I’m listening to them through the wall, grunting and gasping.
Then Karen comes back to bed and I say, “You know, I never saw that movie, but I remember hearing that afterwards the guy and his wife –”
“Demi Moore,” Karen says.
“Whatever. So after she gets dorked by Redford, she and her husband can’t get over it.”
“Your point?”
“Um, just that I really don’t think I’m going to have any problem getting over this. How about you?”
“Me neither. Now, let me tell you what I think we should do with the money.”
And for the rest of the dream, we’re talking mortgages and investments.
D.
One outa four ain’t bad
We took off a four-day weekend for Easter — my employees’ idea, which I supposedly approved — and I’d had great hopes of finishing my romance, but it was not to be. Not that it was a wasted weekend. On Friday, I dashed off nearly 3000 words on a weird little erotica short story. Great, thought I, I’ve broken the block! Yet I still kept gagging on the manuscript.
A few months ago, I threw away the last quarter of the novel and started afresh. Today, I reread the newer material, and I’m happy with it. The big sex scene may be a little too kinky for some of my beta readers but I’ll bet I’m underestimating y’all. And now none of my characters are behaving with extraordinary stupidity. No dumbass misunderstandings, no improbable emotions. I think I see the way forward.
And I probably could have written more than five hundred words today, too, except this was the first sunny day of the last four, and the boy and I were stir crazy. Hard to resist this:
Losing the war on drugs one cat at a time
It’s getting ugly at Chez Walnut.
And here’s the I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? version:
Live blogging live blogging
7:02 PM. We had ham, buttermilk biscuits, and broccoli for dinner. The kitchen’s clean, so I’m rarin’ to live blog. Let’s see how long it takes for Shaina to show up.
7:07 PM. Yes, it would help if I kept my speaker on. Otherwise, how will I know when Shaina shows up? Oh, and Shaina’s Brother? Your little sister is safe with me. Seriously.
7:18 PM. Just spent the last 11 minutes finding out whatever happened to Vanessa Del Rio, the first Hispanic porn superstar. Hint: she’s alive and well — you go, Vanessa!
7:19 PM. and yup no one has shown up yet. It’s like y’all have lives or something.
7:29 PM. I’m looking at the Bitches’s Chink and Jewy cover again, cuz I’m preparing a 13 entitled, “Thirteen Intertubes that make me grin.” Bloody brilliant. My high school gf’s mom wasn’t a smoker, though (not to my knowledge). But I learned recently the woman liked me. She reeeally liked me. She just had to pretend she hated me.
7:38 PM. Ah, yeeeeessssss. My first victim visitor. PatJ.
8:31 PM. Pat had to leave. I’ll keep things on a while longer for the night owls. Meanwhile, I’m going to check out some Machinima.
8:33 PM. Live blogging live blogging . . . you know, the concept hinges on me actually being able to DO some live blogging . . . just thought I’d point that out 🙂
9:00 PM. Major faux pas. Blue Gal came on and I wasn’t here! BG, how do you want to punish me when you see me again? You choose!
9:15 PM. BG came back long enough to make me grovel. Thanks, BG! Now Suisan and I are dishing on Passover food.
9:33 PM. Poor Blue Gal was burned out from her Blogswarm. Suisan and Noxcat and I are talking about rodents. We all agree that MICE ARE CAT FOOD!
10:28 PM. And that’s it. We all faded out at about the same time. Nice long discussion about feeldoes and fuck-me furniture, cookies and seders and chili — oh, my!
Good night, everyone.
D.
Answer me one simple question
This is the last day for the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm, and I’ve finally figured out what I wanted to say. I know I can’t say it without pissing off a lot of people, but I hope I can at least make myself understood.
I have no problem with people of faith who cherry-pick their beliefs. These are folks who adhere to the higher moral and ethical precepts of their religions, and who choose to ignore the crazy stuff. I’m a cherry-picker myself, as I have stated. Shorter version of that post:
. . . the Golden Rule is everything. We don’t need anything else.
And if each one of us could take that to heart and jettison all the other “articles of faith” (note, please, that you don’t even need faith to adopt the Golden Rule), the world would be a far better place.
So — what’s the obvious problem with theocracy? Theocrats aren’t cherry-pickers. They believe it all. Oh, they may not want to bring back the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament, but are they literalists otherwise? You betcha. And that’s a problem, because some of those beliefs are mighty suspect.
I’m not even talking about the obscure stuff, like combing through Leviticus to find justification for one’s hatred of gays. I’m talking about big league, central-tenet-of-faith stuff — like Passover, for instance. Passover is key to both Judaism and Christianity. Everyone knows the story: the Hebrews are enslaved in Egypt*, God directs Moses and Aaron to free the Hebrews, Pharoah resists, God punishes Pharoah and his people with ten plagues, the last of which is the Death of the Firstborn, in which the Angel of Death kills all firstborn Egyptians but spares the Hebrews. Moses and Aaron have instructed their people to mark their doors with lamb’s blood so that the Angel of Death will “pass over” those homes. Hence the name.
Yes, most folks know this story, but who ever bothers to question it?
I will, and I’ll do it with typical Jewish panache:
God kills all the firstborn Egyptians, babies to ancients, guilty and innocent alike. And this is a good thing?