Cain and Abel seem to still be causing trouble … "Pale Blue Eyes," Alejandro Escovedo "I Hate Myself for Loving You," Joan Jett "Rudderless," The Lemonheads "Car," Built to Spill "Palo Alto," Radiohead "Tom Traubert's Blues," Tom Waits "Life on a Chain," Pete Yorn "Cattle and the Creeping Things," The Hold Steady "Mean Eyed Cat," Johnny Cash "All I Need Is Everything," Over the Rhine Bonus: I couldn't find that track, but here's Over the Rhine doing one of my... Read more
Somebody mentioned the "ex-gay" ministries in comments below, which always reminds me of this classic bit from Mr. Show: For a more serious look at the same subject, check out the documentary One Nation Under God, which tells the story of the founders of prominent "ex-gay" group Exodus International. It's a love story. Read more
A bit of a follow-up regarding my epiphany on Glenwood Drive … I grew up attending a fundamentalist Baptist church and a nondenominational fundie school yet, fairly early on, I realized I couldn't reconcile much of what I was being taught with much of what I was otherwise learning about the world. In the footnote to the previous post, I mentioned an epiphany of sorts that occurred when I was confronted with the disparity between the "trap street" shown on... Read more
The previous post ends by asking "What do you call it … when you say something you know is not true?" One possible answer, other than "a lie," is "a trap street." I first learned about this as a kid, when I inherited my older brother's ten-speed and a road atlas of Middlesex County. My best friend lived in one of two houses on a short street connecting two dead ends, like the crossbar of capital "H." The road atlas,... Read more
So here's an editorial in today's paper. Odd. I hadn't heard of this secret plan they're on about. NPR, the BBC and KYW Newsradio hadn't mentioned it. Nor had The Washington Post or the Times from either coast, or the rest of the paper I get paid to read. And the usual couple of dozen blogs I trust to keep me abreast of such things hadn't mentioned this either. So I asked Google to tell me where this came from.... Read more
I'm usually fond of obsessive old kooks — flat earthers, cryptozoologists, ghost-hunters and the like. There's often something admirably Mulder-esque, or at least Lone-Gunmen-esque, about these determined Cassandras. You want to avoid getting cornered by them at parties or after church, of course, but in small doses in the proper setting — such as listening to their calls on Art Bell's radio show while driving late at night — they can be a source of delight. The world would be... Read more
Oh for the love of Ganymede, this can't be real: "Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion,” reads the letter that went out under [Republican Georgia State House Rep. Ben] Bridges' name. “This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.” … The letter goes on to... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 250-251 At the post-U.N.-appearance press conference for Nicolae Carpathia of Romania … You'll recall that Carpathia's speech consisted of four parts: 1) an alphabetical listing of the member states of the United Nations; 2) a listing of the every secretary-general and their "terms of office, not just by year but also by specific day and date of their installation and conclusion;" 3) a description of "the six principal organs of the U.N.;" and 4) a listing of... Read more
Never pick a fight with someone who buys [virtual] ink by the barrel. In theaters today is Breach, (trailer) described in the film's publicity as "Inspired by the true story of the greatest security breach in U.S. history." It's the story of F.B.I. analyst Robert Hannsen, who was arrested in early 2001 after spying for the Soviet Union and Russia for more than 20 years. Hannsen is, to say the least, a complex and contradictory figure. He betrayed his country... Read more
Following up on the discussion of "Christian fiction" in the comments to this post … Question: What do the following books have in common? Jayber Crow; Godric; The Emperor of Ocean Park; The Man Who Was Thursday; Teaching a Stone to Talk; Crime and Punishment; The Bishop and the Missing L Train; Monsignor Quixote; A Prayer for Owen Meany; WLT: A Radio Romance; Traveling Mercies; While I Was Gone; A Good Man Is Hard to Find; The Thanatos Syndrome;... Read more
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