Archive for 3/24/2008 - 17 Adar II, 5768

I was at an open mic last night. It’s called the Chippewa Chapel Travelling Guitar Circle and Medicine Show. When Frederick’s Music Lounge closed down, their popular weekly Hootenanny/Open Mic went on the road. Last night it was at the Venice Cafe. I wasn’t there long - as I had to get up early for work, but it was enjoyable. And the host said poetry was permissable (Fred preferred Music) so at some point in the future I might bring some poetry there to read.

I also might drop by The Venice on one of their Monday night open mics, but I haven’t been there for awhile either since like Friday mornings, I have to be at work early on Tuesday mornings too. (The Aalim Belly Dancers perform on occasional Monday nights immediately prior to the open mic…so I might look at the calendar and choose one of those nights.)

In a few minutes I will be heading to the Hartford Coffee Company for their weekly open mic. It’s from 7-9:30. Ironically, it’s a weekend, and I don’t have to be anywhere early tomorrow morning, and the open mic is over before the Venice Cafe open mic usually begins.

Hartford’s open mic regularly has a great group of performers, and the comraderie and friendship among the performers reminds me of the Wabash Cafe. It’s truly the closest I’ve experienced since the Wabash burnt down on March 18th, 1994.

I found the above photograph somewhere online back in 2002 and didn’t write down the URL or any information, and can’t find it online anywhere, so I have no idea who photographed it. The Pageant was built on the remains of The Wabash.

Yes, I know about the contest at 106.5 to win two tickets to the taping of the finale on April 10th.  I have entered 4 times.  (There are four multiple choice answers, and I didn’t watch the show last night, so I don’t know the answer, but there is nothing on the page that says multiple entries are discarded.  I think I could enter 40 times and get at least 10 correct submissions.)

As many of you are probably aware, on May 18th, the long-running television show Will and Grace will air its series finale.  (it’s been on the air since 1998) It will probably receive a fair share of the ratings that evening.

Will and Grace was one of my grandmother’s favorite tv shows.  Over a period of several years, my brother, sister-in-law, several cousins, and myself would gather at my grandmother’s every Thursday night, eat dinner, and watch must-see TV.  Grandma said she definitely preferred Friends and Will and Grace over Seinfeld.  She also liked Jesse, starring Christina Applegate, and was upset it didn’t last longer than it did.  She hated Scrubs.  (I think the faster pace of the series confused her.)  I’ve often wondered if she enjoyed the shows more because she was watching them with her grandkids, but she did have preferences.

My grandmother passed away a few years ago, and she hung on long enough for her out-of-town grandkids to arrive, and watch NBC one last Thursday night from her hospital room. 

As most of you are probably not aware, I will be watching the episode with several members of my family, at my uncle’s house.  Not because it was one of my grandmother’s favorite shows — but that does make it even better.   But because my cousin will be appearing on the episode.  This isn’t the first television show he will have been in.  He was in a 2003 episode of The Division.  However, more people will be watching Will and Grace on May 18th than those who watched The Division.  And if there is a heaven, and there are television sets there, my grandmother will be watching too.

At the end of January I attended an Interfaith Educational Forum. The only thing I had to say when I blogged about it afterwards was how I reacted to seeing my rabbi without a yarmulke. (It was an interesting discussion on the Islamic, Christian and Jewish attitudes about Abraham, but unfortunately the Islamic representative had a very thick accent, and I was most interested in hearing what he had to say.)Recently I learned they had chosen Tuesday night as the night for an ongoing dialogue between participants from the three congregations. I wasn’t surprised that Tuesday was chosen since they asked those who attended the forum which night was most convenient, and the forum was on a Tuesday night.

The first meeting of the Interfaith Dialogue occurred last night. I had agreed to meet a friend who is in the group at the Methodist church at 6:45. Google Maps told me it would take 25 minutes, but I left at 6, figuring I should give myself a cushion in case of any remnants of rush hour traffic and since I had never driven to the church before. (I had been to the church once with this friend for a craft fair, but that was back in November or December, and I hadn’t driven.) It was a good decision.

I knew the address was on Woods Mill Road (aka hwy 141), but I didn’t know the intersection. Following the instructions I had printed out, by the time I passed 141 and Manchester, I decided I had gone too far, so I got off at the next exit, went back on the outer road, and found a Shell station. The individual behind the counter had no idea where the church was. I gave her the number of the address, and she had no clue how close or far away it was. I asked for the phone directory and called the church. Of course, no one answered. It wasn’t business hours. But their answering service told me they were on the corner of 141 and Manchester. I confirmed with the Shell clerk I was on the corner of 141 and Manchester. She nodded. She told me there were a couple churches a little south on 141, perhaps one of those. I was doubtful. That wouldn’t be considered the intersection…but I left the building, slightly worried I wasn’t going to find it.

As I exited, across the street, this is what I saw

After laughing, I thought about going back inside and pointing it out to the clerk, but decided to refrain. I had to figure out how to get there, which wasn’t easy, since there was a median I was unable to cross. However, I pulled into the parking lot at exactly 6:45, just as my friend was pulling in too.

The meeting was productive. We introduced ourselves to each other. We discussed what a dialogue meant, what to expect in the future, what we wished to discuss as a topic at the next gathering, and when the next gathering would be.

We’re not meeting in April because there are too many conflicts. (Passover and Easter, primarily.) Our first real dialogue will be May 10th. This is a Wednesday. Because it was discovered that there is a major women’s study group at the mosque every Tuesday night so if we wanted significant Islamic female participation, Tuesdays was actually a very bad night. (The polling they did at the forum didn’t reveal this, because obviously those who were at the forum were, by and large, not the ones in the study group). This made me happy because it meant I wouldn’t miss more writer’s group meetings due to this.

It’s nice to hear that there is an Islamic women’s study group — but rationally, I know this is the US and not Iraq, and I shouldn’t be too surprised.

This week, the Victor Hugo Quote of the Week wasn’t written by Victor Hugo.  It was written by Ambrose Bierce.  It’s a full poem, I’ve just discovered it, and decided I had to share:

ONE OF THE SAINTS

Big Smith is an Oakland School Board man,
And he looks as good as ever he can;
And he’s such a cold and a chaste Big Smith
That snowflakes all are his kin and kith.
Wherever his eye he chances to throw
The crystals of ice begin to grow;
And the fruits and flowers he sees are lost
By the singeing touch of a sudden frost.
The women all shiver whenever he’s near,
And look upon _us_ with a look austere–
Effect of the Smithian atmosphere.
Such, in a word, is the moral plan
Of the Big, Big Smith, the School Board man.
When told that Madame Ferrier had taught
_Hernani_ in school, his fist he brought
Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee,
And he roared: “Her Nanny? By gum, we’ll see
If the public’s time she dares devote
To the educatin’ of any dam goat!”
“You do not entirely comprehend–
_Hernani’s_ a play,” said his learned friend,
“By Victor Hugo–immoral and bad.
What’s worse, it’s French!” “Well, well, my lad,”
Said Smith, “if he cuts a swath so wide
I’ll have him took re’glar up and tried!”
And he smiled so sweetly the other chap
Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp
Caught in a storm of his native snows,
With a purple ear and an azure nose.
The Smith continued: “I never pursue
Immoral readin’.” And that is true:
He’s a saint of remarkably high degree,
With a mind as chaste as a mind can be;
But read!–the devil a word can he!

Ambrose Bierce, from “Black Beetles in Amber”

I also just learned that you can search the text of all the documents at Project Gutenberg. (As long as there aren’t more than 1000 hits.  Luckily, only 875 books so far mention Hugo.)

Here is the answer:

 Because it’s freakin’ cold there!

I bet you can’t guess the question

Good Willy  “The Will to Win” (an advertising comic from the 1950s, created by Milton Caniff, who also drew the comic strip, Steve Canyon.  Some of the language is slightly dated.)

Google announces a new app, I have to try it out.  So when they announced GooglePages I was disappointed that they quickly closed it to new customers due to overload.  However, I signed up to be notified when they had more room…and they did so today.

So now I have 100 mb here.  But what do I do with it?

New Animal Resembling Furry Lobster Found

(of course, I’m being humorous with the title.   Now, if they find, or create, a lobster with scales and fins…)

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then — just to loosen up.
 
Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.
 
I began to think alone — “to relax,” I told myself — but I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.
 
That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life.
 
She spent that night at her mother’s.
 
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself.
 
I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”
 
One day the boss called me in. He said, “Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.”
 
This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation with the boss. “Honey,” I confess, “I’ve been thinking…”
 
“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”
 
“But Honey, surely it’s not that serious.”
 
“It is serious,” she said, lower lip aquiver.  “You think as much as college professors, and college professors don’t make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won’t have any money!”

That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently. She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.
 
“I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out the door.
 
I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors… They didn’t open. The library was closed.
 
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a Poster caught my eye, “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked.
 
You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinkers Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.
 
I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Porky’s.”
 
Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.
 
I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed…easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
 
I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.
 
Today I made the final step, I registered to vote as a _____. 

(This joke has been modified so you can complete it in the fashion which most pleases you.  There is of course, as everyone knows, only one correct way to complete it.) 

I went to the Belleville Flea Market this past weekend.  I purchased 10 fleas. (rimshot)

The flea market is only one weekend each month, and it’s huge.  I was doing pretty well.  I was about to leave and I had purchased the following:

3 1970s Starlogs with great nostalgia items on Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Close Encounters. $1 @

3 Ray Bradbury Chronicles Graphic Novels $2 @ (each with 4-5 short stories illustrated, including The Tonybee Convector, one of my favorites)

Raver #1 (written by Walter Koenig) and a 3-part Dr. Strange story at $0.25 @ (the latter purchased mainly so I would spend an even $1, but it was a complete story.)

1 1970s Broadway Playbill from the Majestic Theater - Fiddler on the Roof, with Bette Midler as Tzeitel.

In short, I spent $11 on a handful of great nostalgia and comic book items. 

But as I was leaving I passed a table with some Grateful Dead bears.  I purchased Haight and Ashbury (couldn’t purchase one without the other), and so my total expenditures within a matter of seconds nearly doubled.  But they look cute with Uncle John, Jack-a-Roe, and Shakedown which I had purchased somewhere else a few months ago.

Today had an annual review with the boss. Went well. I still have a job. Though he often greets me and my colleague with the phrase, “good morning, job seekers” at our regular status meetings. It can be unnerving. One of these days he might be serious. (It’s a reference to a British comedy sitcom called League of Gentlemen (not to be confused with the Alan Moore graphic novel. )

An hour before the workday was complete, he came to the office and dropped a Fed Ex package on my desk and told me to deliver it, making a joke about the timing, as he knew he was giving me a ticket to leave an hour early. So I turn my computer off, grab my coat, grab the package, and head on out. When I get to the front door of the building I see a FedEx truck parked in front. No joke.

Someone else leaving early, who sees me carrying the package, tells me I could give it to the driver. I nod. I’m sure I could. But then what would I do? There’d still be close to an hour left of the day, and I really would have no excuse to leave…I might even be able to get more work done. But then again, there’s a full year before my next review…
So of course I walked right by the truck, got into my car, and drove to the FedEx office.

The below quotes are from the novel Les Miserables:

Algebra applies to the clouds; the radiance of the star benefits the rose; no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand? (p. 886)

If no one loved, the sun would go out. (p. 935)

What leads and controls the world is not locomotives, but ideas. Harness the locomotives to the ideas, yes, but do not mistake the horse for the horseman. (p. 955)

A work colleague and I have just come to the following conclusion:

In most countries it is lawful to get a jawful of felafel or a waffle, even if they’re awful.

Back in May 2003, Les Miserables closed on Broadway.  This depressed me at the time.  That left Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats as the longest running show on Broadway, with Phantom of the Opera not far behind.  I’m not terribly fond of ALW’s work, and I hate TS Eliot’s poetry.

This has been a better year though.  Phantom has surpassed Cats on Broadway.  Still Andrew Lloyd Weber, but at least TS Eliot has been knocked down a notch.

Even better, in October, in London, Les Miserables will become the longest running play ever in the world.  And to celebrate the event, it’s returning to Broadway.
The Broadway return will use some of the stage set and cast of the current National Tour.  The last performance of the National Tour before it will be shut down and moved to Broadway will be in St. Louis, at the Fabulous Fox, on July 23.

Since it is unlikely I will make it to Broadway, I plan on being at the Fox on July 23.  (I saw it from the front row on Broadway in 1988 anyway.)  I also plan on wearing this t-shirt.  (Or maybe something new I create between now and then.)  I know wearing a t-shirt to The Fox is a little unusual, but I figure I ought to be able to get away with it.

Every once in awhile a Conservative blogger can be funny, even when they’re trying to be:

Results of New In-Depth Study Revealed: Bush May Actually Be Hitler!

(By the way….I found this link on an email list of people who are mostly to the left of me politically.)

Ireland in about 2 months will repeal a large number of outdated laws, including one that forbade Irish Jews from owning armor.  A thread at the Volokh Conspiracy has a few of the obligatory D&D jokes

Let it be recorded in the annals of literary history. On March 16th, 2006 CE, the very first Jenny was published outside of my blog.

The New Verse News, who accepted Honoring Dick Cheney Tanka last month, accepted How Now Chef Cow.

I guess it is theoretically possible somebody somewhere could have written a poem in this syllabic pattern previously, either intentionally or unintentionally.  If intentionally, I am not the creator of the form.  But we shall assume our culpability until we see proof otherwise.

Jewish Elders Lift 6,000-Year Ham Ban

(OK, I’m about 8 years late in seeing this news story from The Onion. Funny. Untrue, yes, just in case some people don’t realize The Onion is a satirical newspaper. But Funny.)

“For six millennia, the story of the Jewish people has been the story of survival,” Baruch said. “But even the most indestructible race would lose their will to live after 6,000 years of brisket.”

Are Jewitches (or Jewish Pagans) moronic, oxymoronic, or neither?

The idea of Jewish mysticism is certainly not alien (especially, unfortunately, to some in Hollywood)

Those Rabbis in some of the links above who insist magic and Judaism are polar opposites have forgotten about Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, and his golem. Or the Hassidic concept of a Tzaddik or ‘holy man’ with the ability to “see far, travel quickly, read minds, and produce miracles.”

There’s no question that goddess worship appears at first glance to be in violation of one of what Kinky Friedman calls “The Top 10 Commandments.”

[In Judaism all 613 commandments given in the Five Books of Moses are on equal footing, but Christianity’s emphasis on the Ten has seeped in through the culture and some less observant Jews think the Ten are more important. Christianity, while emphasizing the Ten, also seem to emphasize a few selected commandments from the other 603, such as the one against homosexuality, and “love thy neighbor as thyself”]

Where was I, yes, Goddess worship. It appears to be anti-monotheistic, but that’s only if you view G-d as distinctly male. There is a tradition of the Shekhina representing the feminine aspect of the divine.

Leonard Nimoy, the photographer, compiled a book of photographs entitled Shekhina. Some of the photographs have been critiqued as soft porn. (Nimoy is also known by some as an actor from a short-lived television series of the 1960s…)

Currently I am role-playing about once a month with a group of friends in the Mage universe, based on Laws of Ascension. (Our gaming lies somewhere between tabletop gaming and Live Action Role Playing, in that we generally remain seated, and roll die to decide outcomes, but we don’t use miniatures and we don’t have dungeon maps, and we normally don’t sit around a table. It’s almost comparable to LARPs in the same way the read-throughs stage performers do of plays are comparable to the actual performance. Though I have never actually participated in a LARP.) My character is Rabbi Moishe ben Chaim. He has some cool abilities. (Far beyond the use of his Star of David to kill some vampires he’s run across, ala Roman Polanski. I almost wrote ‘Mel Brooks’. It almost seems that should be one of his movies, but Polanski did it.)

It’s taken several years, but Victor Hugo Central is finally the Mary Chapin Carpenter google link for Victor Hugo.  As it should be.  (It appears they’ve finally updated their ranking formula so Geocities type sites aren’t more heavily weighted.)

I’ve heard from one person who has said they are unable to comment on this new blog. 

In the language of IT, where I spent four wonderful years, “that’s strange, it works for me.”

However, there have been no comments since I moved.  This is a low-traffic blog, so it might not be indicative, but still, it makes me worry.

So…if you are unable to comment, send me an email.  The address is at the left.  Let me know what kind of computer you are using (Mac/PC), and what kind of browser (IE, Netscape, Firefox).  Thanks, hopefully I can figure out what’s wrong. 

I found this meme at A Whole Can of Plot. The results aren’t too surprising.My results:
I am Derrial Book (Shepherd)

Click here to take the Serenity Firefly Personality Test

Apparently the SD abortion law actually does carry an exception for rape…If the woman was a religious, virgin.

(An SD Rep hypothesized that a religious, virgin who was raped might be so messed up giving birth might be life threatening.)

The below quotes are all from Les Miserables 

Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity’s inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms. (p. 514)

The greatness of democracy is that it denies nothing and renounces nothing of humanity. Next to the rights of Man, side by side with them, at least, are the rights of the Soul. (p. 517)

As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere. (p. 518)

Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread. (p. 519)

We bow to the man who kneels. A faith is a necessity to man. Woe to him who believes in nothing. A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. To meditate is to labor; to think is to act. (p. 521)

my boss’s boss just insulted my mother.

on monday he offered anyone $20 if we caught him eating anything sweet.

we threw a party for a couple new people on our floor today, and I brought a box of leftover donuts to his office, and asked him if he wanted one.

and then he insulted my mom.

Mexico Walloped Canada in the World Baseball Classic, which means the US has a chance to advance. We still need to beat South Africa today. (We would have been eliminated If Mexico had only won by 2 or less points, since Canada managed to beat us on Wednesday. We would have been placed in a 3 way tie that was unravelled by the number of runs in the favor of Canada and Mexico being the 2 teams of four advancing regardless of what happened in our last game of this round. We’ll still be tied, but the run total now works out in Mexico and our favor. International Baseball Federation rules have the first tie-breaker as runs allowed divided by the number of defensive innings in the field in games between the teams tied. (that hurts my brain.)
Apparently two members of the Canadian team were Cardinals. Stubby Clapp and Larry Walker. Walker retired last year, and is the Canadian manager. He schooled the Canadian players on how to hit the US pitcher, and it worked. Apparently he didn’t have enough information to share on the Mexican pitcher. Stubby played 23 games for us in 2001. I have no recollection.

Another typical attack against the ACLU.

A Christian attorney says the ACLU is resorting to “old tricks” by filing a federal lawsuit to stop The Gideons International from giving Bibles to fifth-graders at a public school in Missouri.With more than a quarter million members in 181 countries, The Gideons — founded in 1899 — place and distribute more than 63 million Bibles every year. That equates to an average of one million every six days, or 120 per minute. With that wide a distribution network by such an established ministry, it causes one to wonder why the American Civil Liberties Union would worry about distribution of Scripture in a tiny Missouri community of slightly more than 300 people.

Because ‘distributing’ bibles in hotels is one thing, and public grade schools is another?

“You just look at the text of the First Amendment — what does it say?” the [school’s] attorney asks rhetorically. “It says ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.’ Well last I checked, Congress has not delegated to the South Iron Elementary School in Annapolis, Missouri, any authority to make law of any sort.

When schools refuse to allow bible study/prayer on campus, they are often rightfully attacked as it violates the First Amendment. The courts have upheld this under some circumstances. (It must be student initiated - voluntary - non disruptive of class time.)

But, now, when the school is on the side of religion, the connection between schools and Congress is no longer apparent?

If public schools aren’t viewed as an extension of the State, then none of the freedoms granted in the First amendment (Press, speech, religion, assembly) apply on school grounds. Schools would be able to expel students for silent prayer between classes. This can’t be what they want.

And that book — the Holy Bible — is endorsed by three of the world’s major religions, he points out, thereby making the ACLU’s claim erroneous that the Missouri school’s actions endorse a specific religion

**cough** What? Let me explain this to anyone confused in simple words. The Gideons Bible contains the New Testament. The New Testament is not endorsed by three of the world’s major religions. (Unless those three are Catholics, Methodists, and Baptists…or some other three Christian denominations.) Neither Judaism nor Islam endorses the New Testament.

OK. I can accept that AgapePress, as a Christian News Media Service is going to have a particular bias. I can understand that they wouldn’t like the ACLU, even though the ACLU are staunch supporters of religious freedom.

But is it possible that the author of this news story was able to write it, and believe what he was writing? Believe that this was a valid interpretation of the First Amendment? Believe that 3 major religions endorse the New Testament? Is it possible there really is a lawyer out there that believes it? Where did they go to law school? The mind reels. I know most of my friends, regardless of their religious and political beliefs, would see the errors in this article from a mile away. How does one respond to someone who doesn’t?

Snopes once again has revealed a news report too good to be true.

Blondes aren’t 200 years from extinction.

Some factoids are just too intriguing, their hold on our imaginations too tenacious, for us to let go of them — no matter how often or how thoroughly they may be debunked. One such factoid, about a scientific study’s supposedly predicting that the naturally blonde-haired segment of the human population will die out within the next few centuries, gets trotted out when something prompts a mention of blondes in new stories.

I had relied on the BBC accuracy.

The last natural blondes will die out within 200 years, scientists believe.A study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202.

I used the BBC report back in 2002 to predict Conservatives would soon disappear. (If blonde hair is caused by a recessive gene, I reasoned, so might Conservatives.)

Alas, it seems there might be some holes to my theory.  But if Snopes is correct, and this scientific theory does truly date back to the Civil War, and if somehow the theory is correct, then the good news is, if my math is right, we only have 60 years left of Conservatives.

“Dana Reeve, heroic widow of fallen ‘Superman’ star, dies.” (or so reads the AP headline on many newssites.) Which of course reminds me of the uproar in the fan community back in October of 2004 when John Byrne, comic book author, dared to say that Christopher Reeve wasn’t heroic. I agreed with him, partially. (please read before you attack)

And my original post, on my old blog, is the #1 google hit for: John Byrne heroic (and several variations on that theme)

My thoughts regarding Dana are identical. Enduring lung cancer isn’t heroic, in itself. But her involvement with the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation qualifies. And she should certainly be remembered for her devotion to her husband. And my heart goes out to their 13 year old son who has lost both of his parents.

So far it seems Byrne’s not repeating his mistake.

It’s also being said that Lung Cancer may get some more attention with respect to research funds, which is good. It surprises me that it is underfunded, but I guess I can understand the belief that it is a self-inflicted disease. However, Dana Reeve is not the first non-smoker to die from it.

On some blogging systems, as you may or may not know, it’s possible to have a ‘friends page’ where you can read entries from the blogs of those the blogger identifies as friends.

I now have one of those.  The link to it is in the upper left of the sidebar.

Using the same process, I also created a page called Daily Study, where I am inserting a handful of religious feeds.  Some of these are in Hebrew, and some are in English.  Perhaps this will inspire me to peruse it…if not daily at least more than otherwise.  Perhaps some of you will also feel inspired.  I take no responsibility for what might happen if you do.

I’ve been upgrading this blog with several plugins. So far I have installed 3 new ones this weekend.

1) Verse of the Day. Developed to insert a daily bible verse into your sidebar, I modified it to provide a link to Chabad’s Daily Thought.

2) WP-Translate. You can now view this blog in many different languages by clicking on the flag of your choice at the top. If you’ve ever been to a foreign language website, and asked Google or Altavista to translate it into English for you, you know how horrible these translations are. But it makes my blog appear more international.

3) Word Statistics. I used to have something similar to this on my Movable Type blog. It computes the Gunning Fog, Flesch, and Kincaid reading levels for each post.

On the evening of Tuesday, January 31, I attended an Interfaith Educational Forum hosted by the Interfaith Partnership of St. Louis.  The forum was a ’springboard’ to form the West County Dialogue group between the three participating religious congregations: one Jewish, one Methodist, one Islamic.

Before the forum, everyone received in the mail a letter which allowed us to express our interest in being a part of the Dialogue.  The letter provided information on who to contact.  However, at the actual forum, everyone was handed an additional form to fill out to express which days/times were most convenient for us.  Only those who showed up at the forum got these forms.  It’s possible they were made available to others afterwards, but how one would have found out that they had missed this opportunity is questionable.

So today I received in the mail the unpredictable announcement.  Of those who were able to show up on Tuesday night, Jan 31, Tuesday nights were the most convenient night of the week.  Who’da guessed?
So if I want to participate I have to commit to one Tuesday night a month.  It’s doable.  I’d have preferred any other night, but even though I’ll be missing 25% of my writer’s group meetings, it should give me some food for thought, and perhaps inspire me to write for the other 75%.

I have added more of my archives.  Now everything I posted on blogger is here.

One of those old posts talked about SIPS , Amazon’s term for Statistically Improbable Phrases.  I gave a list of phrases from some classic novels, and the challenge was to identify the novel.

Here are two which should be easier than the three I gave last time:

“Soldier with the green whiskers” “four travellers” and “stuffed man”.   Answer.

“seven goslings”, “grey spider”, and “some pig”.  Answer.

A Missouri State Congressman
has proposed to declare
February Sixth each year
Ronald Reagan Day.
All in all…

I would rather be anywhere else.

There are a lot of interesting bills in the Missouri State House.

Some Progressive blogs have already picked up on HCR 13. 

Resolves that voluntary prayer in public schools, religious displays on public property, and the recognition of a Christian God are not a coalition of church and state.

The Bill doesn’t exactly declare Christianity as the State’s official majority religion, as some claim, but, here’s a direct quote: “Whereas as elected officials we should protect the majority’s right to express their religious beliefs while showing respect for those who object.”  (Nothing is said whatsoever about the minority’s right to express their religious beliefs. I’m sure it was an oversight.)

Alternet is, however, correct in their analysis that the intent of the bill can’t possibly be to be passed.  There’s no way it would be.  Its intent is to draw responses that can be used in upcoming election campaigns.

There are a few other interesting bills on the list. 

HCR 5, for example declares Feb 6 to be Ronald Reagan Day. (oy).

HCR 28 ratifies the Equal Rights Amendment.  (Isn’t this an exercise in futility?  I thought there was a statute of limitations that had passed on it.)

HJR 39 proposes a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a citizen’s first amendment right to pray on public property.  (Nothing in the bill contradicts current law.  No amendment is necessary.  But I would vote for it, just to guarantee it.  It emphasizes voluntary, non-disruptive, non-composed by the state, prayer in public schools.  Something the ACLU is on record of going to the courts to protect.

I also like the idea within the bill that requires the posting of the full text of the first amendment in every public school.

I’ve created a new form of poetry.

I like playing with forms of poetry. Here are a whole bunch.

This table was created by William Gillespie, who was the founder of Newspoetry. It’s his fault, for example, that I even know what a homoliteral or an univocalic poem is, and my first attempts were published on Newspoetry. (follow the links.)

But before I discovered Newspoetry, Gillespie, and those forms, I enjoyed the Japanese haiku and tanka. This is because, for a long time, I’ve known how to count syllables. Rhyming and meter without getting singsongy is difficult. Counting syllables is easy.

But I was thinkng recently…why limit myself to 5-7-5 or even 5-7-5-7-7.

So I came up with a new structure. A total of 38 syllables, broken into 7 lines of prescribed length. You’re not allowed to change the number.

Here’s my first one (the line numbers aren’t necessary, but are there for scholastic purposes):

Title: A true story

1. I was under too much pressure; (8 syllables)
2. my nose began to bleed. (6 syllables)
3. My smart alecky boss asked (7 syllables)
4. if i needed a (5 syllables)
5. transfusion. (3 syllables)
6. (0 syllables)
7. I thanked him for his show of concern. (9 syllables)

A secondary requirement is the author of the poem must have a “good time” writing it.
I call the form, “Jenny.”

As I’ve mentioned before, a few years back I got hooked on the 1980s New Universe
from Marvel.  I’ve found the back issues of most of the titles from the short-lived series.
It appears for the 20th anniversary, it’s coming back.  Warren Ellis is doing a series called newuniversal and there are a handful of one-shots out this month with the title Untold Tales of the New Universe.  (A separate issue for DP7, Psi-Force, Starbrand, Nightmask and Justice)  Peter David is listed as the author of the Justice one-shot, so I am happy it is being released prior to ShowMeCon in April.  Another book to add to my stack to get signed.

A few of the reviewsites around the net make the obvious comparison to J.Michael Straczynski’s Supreme Power.  I wonder how many people made the comparison when JMS wrote his series.

In pretty major religious news, Jerry Falwell has been “converted’ to the thesis behind “dual covenant theology”, and now believes Jews can go to heaven.

Here are a couple links on two/dual covenant theology. (from those who disagree with it…I’m having difficulty finding support.)

“The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Update: There was apparent confusion, and Falwell’s beliefs have not changed.