Got attacked by a dog today. Also saw a little girl reading Horse magazine - so I guess things evened out to make today a neutral day.

Among that group of things that could be accurately called, "My Favourite Things to Do to Calendars," there stands alone one great and wonderful thing that can be accruately called, "My Favourite Thing to Do to Calendars." Really, I just like adding word balloons to the pictures to add context to the scene that is playing out before us over the course of the month. Here is this month's effort, straight outta Compton, yo.

And just in case you had trouble reading the text, it says the following:

PUT-OUT BOY #1

[grumbles to self]

if she make one more "helpful comment about my playing...

I AM JUST GONNA SNAP!

I’m sure you’ve all heard this from me or maybe Johnny before (I forget what he has to say about it), but a friend asked me to critique a tract written by an apologist he knows. In reading it, I was reminded why I stopped liking apologetics, but one thing in particular stood out.

Pascal’s Wager.

For those of you who have forgotten, logician Blaise Pascal long ago wrote something to this effect: if God exists, Christians are stoked and atheists are in some serious trouble; if, however, God does not exists, Christians lose nothing and atheist gain nothing. Therefore, it would be better for us to believe in God, even if he turns out to be mythic, because hey, you have nothing to lose, everything to gain, and some good fire insurance for the road. Over the years, I’ve heard a number of Christians point to this as an apologetic aid.

There is, however, one problem. We call him Paul. With respect to Mssr. Pascal, the more respected apostle deflated the wager years before it was made. While Pascal portrays atheists as the ones who have everything to lose if Christianity is true, Paul says that Christians have everything to lose if Christianity is false.

If Christianity is not true, those who believe it are among all men most pitiable. So sayeth Paul. I think I’ll stick with him on this one, no offense Blaise. If Christianity is a lie then I’m a moron and there sits upon my head a capital L for Loser. I’m comfortable with this. And you should be too. Let’s have no more of this silly wagering business.

While I’m not certain why it matters that the cheater is a transvestite, I think the important question to answer is: is the freebie paper a B paper? A B paper wouldn’t concern me so much because there would be no accolades involved in a B paper whereas a classmate getting Major kudos for another’s work is the devil. Especially if they’re getting kudos that I’m not getting.

Really though, if someone decides to cheat and it bears no real consequence against me, I don’t see how its really any of my business.

Vidblog #30: The Only Joke I Know

One of the several great things that occurred during my time of separation from Das Blog was a grueling evening with Johnny the T in L.A. Now "Why," you ask, "on earth would our very own The Dane find himself in the nexus of all earthly evil and Powerade and standing room only? There is only one thing. Well, two if you count Love. But back to the one: MMW. Without question, one of the grooviest trios I've ever had the privledge of experiencing, Medeski, Martin, and Wood know how to perform. They also know how to baffle. When I saw them in August last year, they performed - Boy Howdy! When I saw them a week ago, they baffled.

They baffled with their talent to be sure, but they baffled nonetheless. I left for home wondering if I really enjoyed the concert. I did, of course, but I was thoroughly drained. Their first song lasted one hour and a half. One and a half hours! It was highly improvisatory and therefore, highly experimental. Billy Martin, their percussionist, spent a lot of time rattling seed pods and other things into spaced mics to form strange sounding backgrounds with which the other two played. Certainly there were moments of driving, grooving melody that had the crowd electrified, but on the whole experimental music is not the easiest to take in standing room only.

I think I would have loved the session had the venue been one with ANY available seating. As it was, I heard fantastic music and was ready to leave for home after the first set. Instead, we stood for four straight hours. I know they were good but I just couldn't appreciate it at the moment. Y'know? I wouldn't mind having the concert on cd though :-)

P.S. can anyone guess what the MMW logo is? I can't.

I was talking with a friend about American policy toward Sudan in the midst of their drawn-out, genocidal civil war when something interesting caught my attention. It came up that the pro-SPLA (the SPLA is the rebel army of southern Sudan), Christian lobby has recently increased its presence in Washington.

This struck me as immediately strange - that there would be such a thing. Christians supporting an army that stands in rebellion against its government? Isn't Christianity is about peace and love and suffering that they might show proof of their victory in Christ? Christians in Rome went happily to their deaths, martyred proudly at the hands of a tyrannical emperor, secure in the fact that they were much more than conquerors. And what does Peter say? "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good." And then, when picturing the proper way of living for the believer, Peters summarizes: "Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor." Honor the heathen emperor (presumably Nero) who would soon call for their deaths? How strange. How fitting.

So what are Christians doing lobbying to support a rebellion, an army devoted to sinful action?

I think this simply stands as further indictment of the confused state of the American church. We become so distracted by earthly values that we begin approaching matters through wholly secular means. The Christian lobby for the SPLA, essentially, can be nothing more than Christians who have allowed earthly horror (and we should be horrified by the Sudanese terrors) to influence themselves into forgetfulness, into a pious amnesia. No longer do they seek first the kingdom of God through the heavenly and effective means provided by God—but they have forgotten Zion and the foolishness of God—and now they scramble to promote solutions fraught with the wisdom of man. In the midst of their confused good intentions, they pay lip-service to the kingdom, and so, lip-service to God and lip-service to the blood of his son.