Tribulation Force, pp. 128-133 The annoying thing — well, OK, one of many annoying things — about what Jerry Jenkins is about to put us through is that none of this has anything to do with biblical prophecies or seal judgments or horsemen or Gog and Magog or any of that. This is just extra, bonus material. His gift to us. This gift being, for the next dozen or so pages, the romantic awakening of 30-year-old virgin Buck Williams and... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 126-128 Nicolae Carpathia is explaining to Buck how he plans to purchase every major newspaper, newsmagazine, radio and TV station in the world. He can do this, he explains, because he is the sole heir of Jonathan Stonagal's fortune. And he is motivated to do this, he says, because of peace on earth and wanting to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. And none of this makes sense. The sort of sappy, vapid idealist that... Read more
As he walked by Billy stuck his knife into his pocketTook a breath and let him pass "Galaxy Song," Eric Idle"Gallop," Lemons Are Louder Than Rocks"Galveston Bay," Bruce Springsteen"The Game," Echo and the Bunnymen"Gangsters Paradise," Off the Beat"Gangster's Paradise," Coolio"Garageland," The Clash"Garden of Serenity," The Ramones"Gardening at Night," R.E.M. The video linked above for Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" is the live performance from the 1995 Billboard Awards. LV and Stevie show up to take that song to church. (And I'd be... Read more
So imagine a survey asking respondents to name their No. 1 favorite baseball team. Now imagine this survey is sent out to every member of the Yankees Fan Club. And that the bylaws of the Yankees Fan Club explicitly state that any member not naming the Yankees as their No. 1 favorite baseball team will have their membership revoked and will be shunned as illegitimate enemies of baseball should they ever respond to such a question with any answer other... Read more
Sorcery is illegal in Saudi Arabia, a crime punishable by death. Some of the activities apparently covered by this law — fortune telling, the lifting or leveling of “curses” — are ancient cons, scams perpetrated to fleece the gullible. Laws protecting Saudi citizens from such scams might make sense, although the death penalty for low-end grifters does seem a bit excessive. But apparently those hoary rackets preying on the superstitious are not what the Saudi law is designed to restrict.... Read more
One of the things that has mystified me over the past year has been the opposition to the proposed closing of the United States' offshore prison in Guanatanamo Bay, Cuba, and the related proposed trials for the terror suspects imprisoned there. I haven't been able to address these topics because I haven't been able to engage the arguments against these things. I haven't been able to engage them because I haven't been able to locate them. It's not easy to... Read more
It's a whole bunch of strangers, all of them clearly very damaged — working their way back slowly, but not yet real attractive. The people back in Berkeley AA all seem like David Niven in comparison, and I'm thinking, Who are these people? Why am I here? … That's from what might just be my favorite Christmas story, Anne Lamott's Advent Adventure. "God has set up a tent among us and will help us work together on our stuff." All... Read more
Over at Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte is rightly irked by a peculiar verbal tic employed by many American evangelical Christians when expressing their disapproval of homosexuality. In a post mainly celebrating the milestone election this month of an openly gay mayor in Houston — Houston, Texas — she quotes from an article on the election in which one Houston resident says, "I don't believe in homosexuality … I think that's a sin." Amanda notes that this doesn't make much sense when... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 126-128 Nicolae Carpathia abruptly remembers that the Event was just three weeks ago and may have some lingering effects, what with a third of the world's population getting disintegrated, hundreds of thousands of people dying in the aftermath, and that whole no children anywhere anymore thing: "Millions have vanished. People are scared. They are tired of war, tired of bloodshed, tired of chaos. They need to know that peace is within our grasp. The response to my... Read more
NPR’s All Things Considered had a fascinating story last week on the Tea Party movement, focusing on a recent convention in Dallas — the one time home of the National Indignation Convention, an identical movement during the Kennedy administration. You can listen to the piece on npr.org or read the entire transcript: “Tea Party Activists Harness Anger to Push Message.” It’s astonishing. NPR is judiciously reserved in its reporting. The story consists primarily of members of the Tea Party movement... Read more
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