Via The Llama Butchers, by way of CalTech Girl, who got it from LadyGunn, who may have found it laying in a manger:
How Many Christians Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?
(show)
Go to CalTech Girl to see her own Orthodox addition to the list and an entry from a commenter describing the experience for Non-denominational Evangelicals.
The news of new MOB Deputy Mayor Fluffenstuff reminded me of the time a couple of years ago when the Mall Diva and I were doing some late night channel surfing. An episode of the Krofft Brothers HR Pufnstuff show suddenly appeared.
“Oh, wow,” I said. “I remember watching this when I was a kid! It was kind of weird, but fun and pretty popular.” We stopped surfing and let the show play out a bit. After 10 minutes MD turned to me in all seriousness.
“Drugs were a real problem back in the 70s, weren’t they?”
I told her I couldn’t remember.
Hmmm, I do recall, however, that HR Pufnstuff was the mayor of an alternative reality island. Whoa, and Doug is mayor of the MOB, an island of reality in an alternative universe. Heavy, man, heavy; hey, don’t bogart the magic flute!
Btw, there is a HR Pufnstuf blog.
The Barnacle Boys have been bugging me.
So, let’s set the record straight, shall we? I’ll even start at the beginning. Here we go:
The crud has been going around at my work for practically a month now, and a lot of the ladies I work with have been coming down with it. I swear I had already gotten it back in February, and I wouldn’t get it again, but noooo, of course I got it. And it was worse this time.
On Monday I was feeling fine, my throat was just feeling kind of tickly, but as the day went on I began to feel worse. I had to work from six to close. I ended up going home at a quarter to eight.
Tuesday I woke up bright and early at six and spent, like, an hour in the bathroom being violently ill. After that I was so weak I could barely drag myself the three feet back to my bedroom. I spent the rest of the day sleeping and being extremely sore all over. I didn’t stand up for fear of falling over.
(By the way, Tiger Lilly is very good at taking care of people when they’re sick so you can keep in mind that if she beats you up. If you hurry and get on her good side, she might nurse you back to health.)
Wednesday was a little better. I actually went down the stairs with out falling, and I ate a pieace of toast. That wore me out. Going back up the stairs was scary. I stayed in bed.
Thursday, I actually went to work. I worked with my boss, and we were both sick. She thought it was kind of funny. I could hardly lift dresses to put them away. It was hard to breathe. I went home. We went to Keegan’s and kicked butt, the highlight of my day. Ben! Stop making faces at me!
Today I feel better, though this cold is trying to take me down and I’m still sore. But I’m going shopping! Yay!
| I can’t believe I missed the opportunity last Friday, St. Patrick’s Day, to feature John Ford’s The Quiet Man, a classic Irish tale and my favorite John Wayne film. Oh well, like the train to Castletown, better late than never.
This is a delightful and beautifully photographed movie with great performances by Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Ward Bond and the quirky Irish cast. The depiction of the Irish as colorful but short-tempered folk much given to drinking and fighting is perhaps a bit politically incorrect in this day and age, but very entertaining and as it is Ford’s tribute to his homeland, though I’m not Irish, it gets a pass from me (not unlike Tim Story’s effort with Barbershop – stereotypes can be effective). Definitely not politically correct is the bit where a woman hands Wayne a stick “to beat the lovely lady” but it’s played for humor and within the context of the story. |
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The interesting contrast for me between this film and others in the series is that in other movies the main character doesn’t quite know what he is capable of and is unsure of what may happen when pushed to the brink. In this movie, Wayne (as Sean Thornton) is fully aware of what he is capable of and fears that it might happen again. He plays an American prizefighter who has killed an opponent in the ring and since retired and immigrated back to Ireland to buy the cottage where seven generations of his family lived. He is resolved to control himself and live quietly — even to the point of allowing people to think he’s a coward — but his pursuit of the cottage and the lovely and fiery-tempered Mary Kate Danaher (O’Hara) sets him on an inevitable collision course with Mary Kate’s brother, Will Danaher, the biggest, roughest and richest man in the county.
Sean’s patience and self-control in the face of the offenses and goads of the Danahers is admirable, but hardly to be seen in his courting of Mary Kate where he is more than a little forward. No doubt the script was written this way to accentuate the cultural differences between America and Ireland, but it does open the door for discussion with young viewers on proper behavior. The story also reminded me of some of the things my wife and I learned recently about why the Bible emphasizes that a husband love his wife but that a wife respect her husband. In this story Sean loves Mary Kate despite her temper and faults but fails to understand how important her things and dowery are to her. Mary Kate on the other hand loves her husband but struggles to respect him, at one point even leaving Sean, telling Michaleen Oge Flynn, “I love him too much to go on living with a man I’m ashamed of,” as he drives her to Castletown to catch the Dublin train. Both, however, come to understand each other and make a formidable team.
Despite the personal tensions and strife in the movie it is mainly a comedy and when the inevitable fight comes at the end of the movie the release is thoroughly enjoyable. All in all it is a very fun movie with some excellent performances and more than a few good points to make.
Questions to answer:
Great Quotes:
Michaleen: “What do they feed Irishmen in Pittsburgh to make them so big?”
Sean: “Steel, Micheleen, and pig iron in furnaces so hot a man forgets his fear of hell. And when you’re hard enough, and strong enough, other things.”
Mary Kate: “What manner of man have I married?”
Friend: “A better one than I think you know, Mary Kate.”
About Fundamentals in Film: this series began as a class I taught to junior high and high school boys as a way to use the entertainment media to explore concepts of honor, honesty, duty and accountability. The movies were selected to demonstrate these themes and as a contrast to television that typically either portrays men as Homer Simpsons or professional wrestlers, with little in between those extremes. I wrote questions and points to ponder for each movie to stimulate discussion and to get the boys to articulate their thoughts and reactions to each movie. I offer this series here on this blog for the benefit of parents or others looking for a fun but challenging way to reinforce these concepts in their own families or groups. As the list of films grows each week, feel free to use these guides and to mix and match movies according to your interests or those of your group. I’m also always open to suggestions for other movies that can be added to the series. You can browse the entire series by clicking on the “Fundamentals in Film” category in the right sidebar of this blog.
The “Dazed and Confused” team of Barry from Water Cooler Wisdom and Dan from Northern Alliance Wannabe, the Mall Diva and myself staggered to an amazingly low-scoring 16 point tie for first place in Thursday night’s trivia contest at Keegan’s.
Booya! Free drink (or dessert, in MD’s case) tickets and entries into the drawing for the trip to Boston. Best of all, though, was sitting across the table from Ben, Kevin, Scott and Chris and rubbing it in (or, in MD’s case, wagging her finger).
Religious activists were outraged today after the St. Paul City Council removed a stuffed rabbit, colored eggs and a sign saying “Happy Easter” from its offices. “This is blatant religious discrimination and another blow against diversity,” said Dru Idish, spokeswoman for People Against God and Nuance (PAGAN), who’s organization staged a demonstration outside City Hall. “I guess the City Council thinks it’s okay to offend Pagans because we usually don’t go around chopping people’s heads off, but we’re simply not going to take it anymore.”
Idish explained that Easter is named after Eastre, or Eostre, the Saxon goddess of dawn, spring and fertility whose symbols are the hare and the egg. “Dyed eggs have been used as part of pagan rituals since the dawn of history in the Near Eastern civilizations, yet the City Council appears to have no regard for history or tradition, or even community standards which have long honored the Easter Bunny,” Idish said.
Idish and her group appeared to have at least one officially sympathetic ear as City Council member Dave Thune said “it’s a shame” to remove the items. “This has just gone too far,” he said. “We can’t celebrate spring with bunnies and fake grass?* Still, I guess it’s better to nip this in the bud before we have someone use tobacco plants in an Independence Day display.”
When asked if other, more mainstream, religions might also identify with the significance of rebirth and renewal, Idish reacted strongly. “Jesus Christ, let them get their own day,” she said.
* Actual quote.
“I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
— Patrick Henry
… so very tired.
I’ve been on-line all night trying to convert frequent flier miles into a couple of family trips. Success was ultimately achieved. But. Must. Rejuvenate.
Blogging resumes Thu…
Laura Billings’ column in today’s St. Paul Pioneer Press suggests that she has as much trouble hearing the truth as Dean Johnson has in telling it — and that trying to hold public officials and employees accountable for statements they make while engaged in public business somehow violates their privacy. An excerpt:
Consider the pastor from Willmar who clipped a tape recorder to his backpack at a ministerial meeting with Senate majority leader Dean Johnson about the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
The intent, the pastor told the Star Tribune, “was a matter of me wanting to be able to, if I needed to, quote Sen. Johnson – accurately and in context.” He never told Johnson about the recording device. He then handed the tape over to an advocacy group in favor of the ban.
Sen. Johnson’s assertion that he had Minnesota justices’ assurances they wouldn’t touch existing defense-of-marriage legislation was truly dumb. It was the sort of sin of pride we’ve seen before from politicians, over-promising to his constituent base and making himself seem more almighty than he really is. His remarks deserved censure, and got them.
Billings appears to have a desire, like Johnson, to deny what we’ve heard with our own ears in Johnson’s and, later in her column, in Jay Bennish’s cases. Johnson’s intent wasn’t to make himself appear better to his friends; he was lying to advance his political strategy and that of his party. Similarly, Jay Bennish wasn’t playing Devil’s advocate, his statements followed his established pattern and weren’t just a provocative sampling taken out of context. The tapes in both cases — despite Billings’ hopes and claims or Johnson’s mealy-mouthed illuminations — prove it. In fact, for both Johnson and Bennish, their past behavior is what caused people to decide that somebody ought to try to get their statements on record.
Now if the people who went to all the effort and risked ridicule to bring these things to light had been courageous New York Times journalists then I’m sure Billings would be celebrating their commitment to truth. Instead:
Yet we’ve seen little reproof for the pastor, who has looked into his own heart and found himself to be without sin. “In everybody’s life there is a moment when you have to choose,” he told the Strib. “You count the cost and then you step out. For me, that was this time.”
I guess I missed the part of the Bible where God says it’s cool to secretly record fellow Christians. Like most things we argue about nowadays, it’s probably in Leviticus.
Lawmakers now should be on notice that everything they say, even to a roomful of ministers, can and will be used against them. Teachers and professors have been learning the same lesson.
Why should a roomful of ministers be expected to keep quiet about a discussion of public policy? They weren’t there to hear confession or to provide private spiritual counsel. In fact, if there was any group I’d expect to call attention to unethical behavior I’d hope it would be ministers. And is Billings ultimately suggesting that the public that pays the salaries of its representatives and teachers now has to read these people their rights before any public business is conducted, warning them that the things they say may be held against them in the court of public opinion?
You know, I couldn’t find anything in Leviticus about not taping others, but chapter 19, verse 11 does say “Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.” Whatever sin Billings may think that pastor is guilty of, it certainly isn’t bearing false witness. Or perhaps the pastor was simply following the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 10:27 when he said, “What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ears, shout from the housetops for all to hear!” He certainly has the right to say to Johnson and Billings the words from Job 15:6, “Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; yes, your own lips testify against you.”
I was certainly reminded of the references in Job 12:22 and Daniel 2:22 about things that are done in darkness being brought to light. As for Dean Johnson, I know there’s one scripture he’s for sure going to remember from all of this and that is James 3:5:
“Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles!”
I don’t remember exactly what links I originally followed last week to get there, but once I stumbled into the Wide Awake Cafe I knew it was a place I’d want to come back to often. Proprietor Laura Lee Donoho stands ready to help visitors wake up and smell the coffee, writing on any number of topics (warning: cat blogging), but with more than a little focus of late on military matters where she has some family history. In fact, she had the best post I read today about the Richard Belzer-Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen showdown on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, using her personal experience to compare the education of “ignorant” soldiers and officers with that of junior college drop-out Belzer.
What uneducated soldier in Iraq? The lowliest private has been through training that is challenging both physically and mentally. Most NCOs in the military have graduated college. All high ranking officers are constantly educating themselves not only through the military but academia. A vast majority of the officer corps have completed at least one Masters Degree. The military services encourage and in fact require the members of the military to pursue higher education. It makes for a sharper edged military. For example, my husband, a United States Military Grad has not one but three Masters Degrees.
What really makes her blog a comfy place, however, are the great graphics. This is one of the most inviting and distinctive-looking blogs I’ve seen in more than a year of cruising the blogosphere. (This is a good opportunity to say that it is refreshing to see more and more creative designs showing up online. People, let’s put those tired Blogger templates back in the toy box and graduate to something more reflective of the personalities that make up this wild world.)
Anyway, stop by the Wide Awake Cafe and see what’s on the menu; I’m pleased to add her to my blogroll menu as well.
Update:
It looks like Hugh Hewitt has stopped in to the cafe for a cuppa as well. I sure hope there’s room for everybody.