I got crucified in ashes.

So tonight I went to my first Ash Wednesday service ever. Some people may wonder how this could possibly be the case. To them I say, visit a Southern Baptist church and you will begin to realize. We are really good at emptying bathwater, and especially good at the accompanying activity of baby-chucking. 

Anyhow, for you all tonight on this Ash Wednesday, I present a multivarious fare of life lessons and observations from the past weeks. 

1. I miss seeing news footage of Mardi Gras in Mobile, especially the mug shots. 

2. This shouldn't make me laugh, but oh how it does!  

3. Sir Joshua Reynolds, master British painter and President of the Royal Academy, writes the following: One advantage, I will venture to affirm, we shall have in our Academy, which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. (Discourses on Art, Discourse 1) And that makes me smirk the wise, knowing smirk of one who knows something the speaker doesn't. 

4. My favorite two commonplaces from week-before-last:

Swede: The [Lordship] quiz is so simple and my mind is just so complex!

Swede: The lordship quiz is like coming in here with all your armor on and ... well ... 

Claire: You realize it's a sumo wrestling match. 

5. Well, now, who'd have thought?  The funniest thing is that you can hear the indignation in the cracking of their voice. 

6. This may become the goriest action movie ever made.

7. I don't even believe this mess. For crying out loud.

8. You know you've been doing too much school work and too little sleeping when you start responding to people in Latin, only stopping when you realize that you don't know the word for narrative. This is, of course, a purely hypothetical situation. 

9. I found this very interesting. 

       Gen. 3:7 (ESV) Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 

      Matt. 21:18-22 (ESV) In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again!" And the fig tree withered at once. 

      Matt. 25:41-46 (ESV) Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food ... and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

10. I'm just glad that the little sidebar of followers now calls itself Google Friend Connect. Otherwise, who knows how I might try to connect with them. 

11. Ladies and Gentlemen, I announce, with great trepidity and hopeful expectation, the appearance of an incredible blog. Behold the Jons.

12. A quick little free-verse I jotted down at some point during week-before-last's Disputatio. Not good but begins to get my point across:

sprinting with a leather bag

slosh-burned

two til and sprinting past waiting hatchbacks

a dollar lighter

but it's this heavy water 

gives me wings. 

Thank God for Americano Fridays. 

I say it's cold outside, so grab a raincoat

Woke up to this little doozie of a surprise. 

It's weird how you feel fine for a few minutes, just like it's 25 degrees or so, but after that it takes very little time for the cold to seep through and just cut to your bones. By the by, if you can catch the reference in the title, I will be quite impressed. 

I just don't think people understand

So here's the headline I saw a few days ago:
U.N. alarmed by Lebanon rocket attacks on Israel
I am intrigued by this. Because, you see, it's so ridiculously obvious. Are there rocket attacks that don't alarm people? I would hate to see them. I mean really, how boring would that attack be?

We continue reading, though

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

You've got to be kidding me. Just when Kofi Annan steps down, we get a man named
Ban Ki-moon? We serve a marvelously funny God, my friends

expressed alarm on Wednesday over reports of Lebanese rocket attacks against Israel and urged all parties in the region to avoid actions that could make a bad situation worse. "That is ... a very alarming, very disturbing and troubling situation," Ban told reporters

Again with the alarm. Apparently General Ban hasn't been told that this sort of thing has been happening since the Muslims invaded like 1,000 years ago. And now he's asking Israel not to retaliate. Someone needs to give the poor man a briefing. Retaliation is my Israeli neighbor's middle name. Not really, but you see my point. Revenge is something they are good at. Their ancestors avenged the rape of their sister by convincing an entire city of men to circumcise themselves, and then came in on the third day "when they were sore" and butchered the lot of them.

Ban said that U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, were investigating the rocket attacks launched from inside Lebanon. The incident took place on the 19th day of Israel's offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza strip.

Tough, that one. Israel fights Hamas militants. All of a sudden, rockets start
appearing out of Lebanon, a known supporter and harbor for Hamas militants.
Careful now, don't think about this too hard or you might get a headache.

Security sources in Lebanon said five rockets were fired, though two fell in Lebanon.

So these guys aren't just idiots because they're fighting against one of the most militant nations on the planet, they're also idiots in the traditional sense of the word. They can't even point and shoot.

"Hamas rocket attacks must stop and at the same time I have been condemning
the excessive military operation by the Israelis," he told an earlier news
conference in Cairo . . .

Apparently we're going to be forgetting that whole part where Hamas stole the land from Israel. Just like we forgot about Hitler annexing Austria. Because that worked so well.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said 1,010 Palestinians had been killed
and 4,700 wounded by Israel so far. The Israelis say on their side 10 soldiers,
and three civilians hit by cross-border Hamas rockets, have been killed.

The moral of this story, kids, is: don't mess with Israel. 13 deaths compared to 1,010?! That's absolutely incredible.

Here's what I don't think people get. People don't understand that God's promises to Israel aren't finished. If God is going to redeem the nation of Israel as He has promised, He's got to have something to redeem.* In the Six Day War in 1967, Israel was attacked by Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. They were outnumbered almost 2 to 1 in infantry, 3 to 1 in the air, and 3 to 1 in tanks. By the end of those six days, Israel had had 800 men killed, 2500 wounded, and 15 captured. The four Arabic nations had lost 13,000 men, 8,000 wounded, and 6,000 prisoners. Israel lost 46 aircraft as compared to more than 400 aircraft. Don't mess with the Lord's chosen. David didn't kill Saul even though he was unfaithful, because Saul was God's chosen one. I can think of no other nation on earth that is that small, surrounded by that many enemies, and that has lasted for that long. So, as the eloquent Pastor Hadding has said on many an occasion, I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. 

*This does, in fact and in most every way, represent what I believe. It may or may not represent what Rob believes, we haven't discussed it yet. Something tells me we will shortly. 

I ask a very leading question

This has been on my mind recently. 

Why are there poor?

And answers like "sin" or "Adam in the Garden" are copouts. I mean, here and now, in 2009, why are there still people who cannot buy food? 

P.S. Sorry we've been so out of touch recently. Family has taken priority. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and that you all watched that guy Robbie Maddison almost kill himself in 14 different ways, and then drop the mighty-mighty-f-bomb on live ESPN TV. American entertainment at its best, folks. 

The Rob Noland Center for Misplaced and Abused Words

Well, I found out something truly amazing a couple days ago. Kaleb hates homonyms! He's what we would call a dehomonyzer, a mahomynist, an anti-homonitic, take your pick. I would say he's a homophobe, but that means something very different (which is rather ironic, isn't it?). In short, he's very intolerant of homonyms.

I however, have much sympathy with homonyms. I have often had the feeling that I'm not where I belong. For example, sometimes I get the idea that I've wandered into the wrong apartment; strengthened by the terrified screams and painful anti-intruder mechanisms (baseball bats) they tend to use. Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. Same building, right? What's the difference? Sheesh. Get a grip people.

Anyway. . .

Inasmuch as I believe that their aren't enough homonyms in Kaleb's posts; I'm going to let homonyms in to mine. I want my posts to be a haven for abused words. I want them to feel that they are always welcome to come into my posts, and be just as wrong as they want to be. After all, they can't help what they are - that is how Webster made them. So, Whose with me?

The only hitch is, I can't have to many, or the post would get overcrowded. Therefore, I will try to have at least one, and not more than 10 in each post. (I might even try to smuggle some into Kaleb's posts. Who knows?)


N.B. I am not actually in favor of unlawful entry into other people's rented rooms. I pretty much stick to my own quarter's in this venerable establishment. And alas, I haven't actually been attacked with a baseball bat during my stay at the "Moscow Hotel".

Dreadlocks

Unfortunately, 4 is a majority when it comes to people voting on what I should do with my hair. Dreadlocks, eh? Are you picturing this?

First, I'm picturing not washing my hair for quite some time. (fun, yeah?)

Second, I think I'll make it green dreadlocks (since the runner-up was "dye it green").

Should I do anything with my beard?

I am going to shutup

The Dow is down 486 points, the S&P is down 52 points, and the NASDAQ is down 98 points. Curtis was right, and I was oh-so-very wrong. Not a real big surprise, considering my knowledge of economics. 

Anyhow, I'm not going to conjecture about why this happened, except to say that I don't really know who these "investors" are. Seriously, does anybody know? I also don't think that it was because people are realizing that Obama's just a politician. They've only had 18 hours to realize that, and I think it'll take more like 18 months, and that may be optimistic. 

Separate and tangentially related: Barack Hussein bin Ladin Jong Il Ayatollah Chavez Castro Stalin Obama is probably Muslim and he was probably born in Kenya, he's consorting with terrorists, and he just might have gotten rid of his grandmother (all things that, if Fox News haven't actually said yet, have been hinted in that particular lack of subtlety that seems to be their trademark), but he's going to be the President of the US of A unless something really crazy happens. So let's drop the blatant ad hominems and stick to criticizing his position, not him. I respect President Bush, I despise the war in Iraq. I love my friends, I hate their sins. Okay? So no more name-calling or other irrelevancies that do no help to anyone, vishte?*

*- That said, let's not get too terribly huffy and prissy. Let's laugh like Christians if something genuinely witty and still respectful comes along. Cue the Colbert, people.  

On the Origin of the phrase and accompanying tune of "Nanny Nanny boo boo"

My dear readers, for some time I have had one great question preying upon my mind. This of course is - from whence comes the phrase "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo"? It appears to me as if everyone, from the very earliest ages on, are acquainted with this form of derision. Is this a comparatively recent development? Fifty years ago did some child of an age prior to that of schooling coin this phrase?

Perhaps, I should look even further back for the origin of this phrase. Could it be as old as Cain and Abel? It may have been this same fatal phrase which so enraged Cain as to commit murder. Unfortunately I still as yet have no answer to this question. If you could elucidate me on this matter I would greatly appreciate it. Perhaps there is an obvious answer to this question and if this is the case I would entreat you to please correct my ignorance at once.