The Misanthropic Frat Boy has a list over on the Nihilist in Golf Pants blog (and really, with names like those how can you resist reading?) describing the Top 11 Democratic Strategies for Winning the War in Iraq. The list includes “skedaddle”, “bug out” and “skonker off”.

Of course, I can’t let an opportunity pass to quote some Monty Python doggerol, i.e. the Brave Sir Robin flight ditty. (You’ll recall that Brave Sir Robin was anything but, and used the MSM – Mainstream Minstrels – to try and convince people otherwise).

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

A great word, or strategy, that the Misanthropic Frat Boy missed is “Absquatulate”, as defined in the American Heritage Dictionary:

SYLLABICATION: ab·squat·u·late
PRONUNCIATION: b-skwch-lt
INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: ab·squat·u·lat·ed, ab·squat·u·lat·ing, ab·squat·u·lates
Midwestern & Western U.S. 1a. To depart in a hurry; abscond: “Your horse has absquatulated!” (Robert M. Bird). b. To die. 2. To argue.
ETYMOLOGY: Mock-Latinate formation, purporting to mean “to go off and squat elsewhere”.

Personally, however, I’ve always like the definition offered in Norman Schur’s book, “1000 Most Difficult Words” (Random House):

Absquatulate
(ab SKWAH chuh late) vb.

This amusing, vivid, and expressive word is a bit of jocular, contrived, slang. To absquatulate is to decamp, to scram, to take off in a hell of a hurry like a fugitive heading into the woods; sometimes, to abscond, like a cashier running off with the contents of the till. The term, invented in America in the 1830s and adopted by the English in the 1870s is an example of supposed derivation from factitious mock-Latin, based on a combination of parts of abscond, squat, perambulate and heaven knows what else. A certain J. Lamont, in an old book entitled Seahorse, wrote of a grizzled bull-walrus who “heard us, and lazily awakening, raised his head and prepared to absquatulate.” You may not run across this little item nowadays, but it’s a picturesque word whose revitalization should be encouraged, though it may be used to describe a practice that should be discouraged.

bookmark to:

Monday morning was the first time I heard the news report on the radio of an American “peace activist” who had been kidnapped in Iraq. I must confess I may have smirked a bit at the thought (I wasn’t in front of a mirror at the time, so I don’t know for sure). The irony was just too rich, and I thought of the old doggerel about the lady that went for a ride on the tiger. I knew my schadenfreude wasn’t very noble, but I didn’t dwell on it then or later in the day when I heard there were four people missing and presumed kidnapped.

That evening, however, Ben from Hammerswing (see here and here) called to say that a long-time friend of his family’s is the British citizen in the group that has been kidnapped. I felt compassion for Ben and for his family and the family of the hostage, and we prayed together for his friend Norman’s safety and for a powerful testimony. I used the scriptures that occurred to me as I prayed that fit the situation, but felt I was missing something. It took a little while for it to sink in, but I eventually realized I had made an important omission.

Here’s the deal: I’m pretty sure I don’t agree politically with the actions of Norman and the others and spiritually I might also disagree with their approach (it’s hard to tell for sure at this distance with only the MSM and its penchant for labels to go by). On the other hand, I know that I wouldn’t have embarked on what they are doing without a lot of prayer and without first seeking God’s direction to be sure I was doing what he wanted me to be doing and in his timing. I wasn’t privy to the conversations these men had with God, and it’s not my job to judge it because I’ve certainly made my own mistakes. This is something I should have realized even before I found out I knew someone with a personal connection to the situation, and I should have guarded against my own hardness of heart in the first place. Having failed in that, I should have repented before or during my prayer with Ben.

As Jesus said in Matthew 5:21-22 (New Living Translation):

“You have heard that the law of Moses says, `Do not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the high council. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.”

If, as James tells us, “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” I may have been hindering my prayers because I didn’t address my attitude, and I know how important this can be. According to Mark 11:22-25 (NLT):

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I assure you that you can say to this mountain, `May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,’ and your command will be obeyed. All that’s required is that you really believe and do not doubt in your heart. Listen to me! You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you will have it. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”

There is something more important than politics or spiritual doctrine at stake with the lives of these men, and with God’s forgiveness (and, I hope, Ben’s), I can now do what I should have been doing all along.

bookmark to:

Spend any length of time in the corporate world and you’re sure to experience the eerie feeling of having the daily Dilbert cartoon mirror exactly something that’s happening at your company that week. I’m used to it by now.



I wasn’t prepared for yesterday’s Shot in the Dark to pull off the same trick, however.



Today a cheery, encouraging email proclaiming “Outlook 2003 is here!” appeared in the in-boxes of my Division. Of course, an exclamation mark doesn’t necessarily mean cheerful and encouraging (think, “The British are coming!” or “Wellstone!”) but I know that’s what my company had in mind. I really didn’t need to see the email to know what was going on, however, because I could already hear the curses and screams of those around me who had already been “converted”. (Like a New Orleans 9th Ward resident wondering where the buses are, I’m still awaiting “my turn”).



In the meantime I can take comfort in Mitch’s statement that there are some things — such as being eaten by rodents or receiving a PineSol colonic from Anna Nicole Smith — that are worse than Outlook.

bookmark to:

Over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house last week took a four tanks of gasoline by the time we got home. Stopping for gas while on a trip often entails taking on bottled water or coffee refills as well. Ever wondered how much it would cost if your car ran on water or coffee instead of gasoline? Here’s a useful table:

This is one of the interesting tidbits on the ConocoPhillips web-site detailing what factors go into gas prices. While ConocoPhillips would hardly be considered an unbiased resource, this page provides links to outside sources and studies that help explain the situation. The information is well organized and easy to understand if you’re looking for a centralized resource on this topic.

One of the factors looked at is the impact of state taxes on gasoline (in addition to the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gasoline tax). The site offers both a map and list of gax taxes by state, and it may surprise you to know that Minnesota is around the middle of the pack nationwide at 22 cents per gallon (as of November, 2004), and lower than all of its neighboring states except Iowa.

HT: the Periodical and Amy Ridenour

bookmark to:

I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire over the holiday weekend with my family and my sister-in-law and her two boys. It was definitely an action-packed movie, easily overcoming the slow-pacing problems of the first two movies. There were plenty of times when watching the first two movies in the series where I wanted to say, “Oh, just get on with it already!” These movies tried, perhaps, to be too faithful to the books. Granted there were a lot of characters and themes to introduce, but the first two were almost unwatchable. Prisoner of Azkaban was much better in this regard. With GOF, however, the problem has nearly reversed from the beginning of the series.

This time around the movie moves forward in sudden leaps that omit big chunks of the story. The omissions aren’t crucial to the story, but anyone who hasn’t read the book is likely to find themselves a bit confused as to why certain things happen, or at least ignorant of some of the backstory that makes certain scenes more significant. My nephews, who hadn’t read the book yet, enjoyed the movie but for them it was just one big action sequence and they were missed details that made GOF the best Potter book (IMO) so far.

Speaking of missing things, what is it with theater sound these days? The past few movies I’ve seen in a theater have been uncomfortably, even painfully, loud. It’s as if they want you to feel as well as hear the movie. What I feel like is that my ears are bleeding and my internal organs have been rearranged. When Tiger Lilly and I went to see Revenge of the Sith I actually staggered out to the lobby – after the previews and the opening minutes of the movie – to ask one of the attendants to have someone check out the sound level. I don’t know if it actually got turned down or not because my eardrums were numb before my third handful of popcorn. This trend continued with GOF, but even with the volume there were large sections of dialog that were the equivalent of an audio smudge to me. Perhaps it was a combination of my age, the background sound drowning out the actors, and the sloppy teenage diction and unfamiliar accents of the actors. I soon gave up saying, “What did they say?” to my daughter because she couldn’t hear me anyway. I guess I’ll have to wait for it come out on DVD where I can turn on the subtitles. Given that I think the decrease in my audio acuity is due at least in part to the abuses of my younger years (cranked stereos and sitting front and center at rock concerts for so long that my ears rang for three days afterwards) I’ve got to wonder about the long-term (and even short-term) effects of this entertainment.

Are there other harmful effects of Harry Potter? I know there is quite a bit of debate in evangelical Christian circles about whether the Harry Potter books and movies are seductive evils that spur an interest in the occult. My position is that I’m completely in favor of parents deciding what is appropriate for their children to see or read. If a parent makes a decision that Harry Potter isn’t for his or her kids, I won’t criticize it. I’ve always been very protective in what kinds of books, music, television and movies my kids could be exposed to and I had my concerns about the Potter books when they first came out. After reading them, however, I didn’t think these were inappropriate for my kids who have more than a Sunday School foundation in spiritual matters. In fact, one of the things that I pointed out early on to them is the similarities we as Christian families share with the wizarding families in the books.

For example, we deal with “the world” in much the same way magical families deal with “Muggles”, and we can suffer the same mistreatment and mistrust as they do. We both have powers that others can’t or won’t tap into. We send our children to private schools where they learn how to develop and control these “powers” and we each have our own heroes, traditions and jargon that the Muggles/World can’t relate to, and we’re both aware there is a definite battle between good and evil. Even though my girls now beat me to reading the books as they come out, I continue to read each just to stay on top of things. I’ve also been blessed by reading resources that explore the Christian themes that can be found in the stories, such as Looking for God in Harry Potter, and I’ll probably read The Gospel According to Harry Potter: Spirituality in the Stories of the World’s Most Famous Seeker by Connie Neal as soon as I can get to it. (HT: LaShawn Barber).

bookmark to: