Overheard at Booth 3: Buffalo Bills Logo

Saw on Twitter the other day this post of a woman who said that her seven-year-old came home crying because he'd drawn a picture of the Buffalo Bills logo and some kid on the bus said it didn't look anything like the Bills logo.

Did it?

Not at all.  Sure, it was a buncha blue scribbles with a red streak, but what can you expect?  Seven-year-old kid.  So anyway, her post was asking for everyone to respond with something that would make him feel better about his creation.  And everyone was like, "that's beautiful" and "don't let people destroy your dream" and all that kinda horseshit, and I just wanted to respond to the lady to say that this is a great opportunity to let her son know that no one is going to like everything we do and that sometimes we have to work at our art to make it better.  Not all art is going to be good at first.  But if you love doing it, you'll keep at it, no matter who doesn't like it.

Besides, that kid on the bus was actually being a friend.

What? How so?

Well, all the people who don't even know this kid and frankly, don't even care, they're all just making themselves feel better. Feel like they're heroes for helping out a crying gradeschooler.  That doesn't help that kid at all.  The kid on the bus, for telling him that his picture sucks, is actually helping him, because he's the only one in this whole story being honest.  I mean, the kid's mom certainly wasn't doing her child any favors by trying to get strangers on Twitter to send empty emotional cuddles to her little precious boy.

Good point.

Sometimes it's the people who tell us when something we do sucks that are the ones who drive us to do better.

Exactly.

So ... did you respond?

Hell no, of course not!  Anything I would've responded would have to have been put under the hashtag AITA.

Because you are.

Because I am, yes.

Overheard at Table 4: Amazon Logarithm

I was just looking for some shelving pegs.

I have no idea why the logarithm thought I needed any of these things (well, OK, I could use a new toothbrush)...

 

 

Overheard at Booth 3: Corporate Christianity

Corporate Christianity: How Double-Minded Pastors Are Hi-jacking Christianity

Bobby E Mills, PhD

Morgan James Publishing, New York, 2013

Found this book on the bookrack at CVS pharmacy while waiting for prescription, immediately grasped by the title. The premise intrigued me, as it reflected something that has been on my mind for a long time now, especially living in a city that houses Dr Ed Young of Second Baptist Church and the brightest-toothed "pastors" - the Osteens of Lakewood Church.

And, while there are many Biblical references in this book, sadly, they are incoherently and randomly placed within the text.  Dr Mills never truly demonstrates HOW these pastors are hi-jacking Christianity.  He just keeps repeating that they are.  And, again, while I agree that they are, he says nothing about how they are.

He even throws in the quote about how these pastors say, "Corporations are people too" ... without acknowledging the source of that quote: Mitt Romney.  Who is not a pastor and is a member of the Mormon church, who, while Billy Graham went to his deathbed suddenly taking the Mormon Church off the cult list, many Baptist and Evangelical pastors still believe that the Mormon Church is a cult.  (Technically, they are)

Suffice it to say, however, this does not bode well for the book, because Mills is unfocused in his writing, and honestly, I couldn't get through half the book.

Then, there are some parts that are actually quite disturbing - certainly not doctrinal.  For example, page 10 "We do not know how long the devil had been having sex with Eve, but we do know that the devil did have sexual intercourse with her."

News to me.  So, no ... we didn't know that. How so, Dr Mills?  He only says, "We know by the nature of the conversation that took place between God, Adam and Eve (Genesis 3).  

Then, page 11 "The apple on the tree is the pear on the ground."  Don't know what pear on the ground references, but I do know that the Bible never says that the forbidden fruit is an apple, and this in itself indicates that this writer has not truly studied sound doctrine.

This chapter is about the garden of Eden, and the fall, but yet it devolves into a discussion about female sexuality and prostitution and never backs up the central premise of the book.

Then, in a subsequent chapter, suddenly were thrown (p 25) this little nugget "Ishmael receives the blessing: the gift of Middle Eastern oil"

That is a modern day interpretation of scripture and is definitely not doctrinally sound.  And then Dr mills goes further and seems to imply that the reason why the Jews are so reviled by certain populations is that they have alienated others by not allowing people to be Jewish except through the birth mother, when in pre-Christian times, one could become part of Israel simply be being circumcized.

The following pages devolve even further from there, which left me sad, because now that we live in an age in which the Southern Baptist Convention and the host of Evangelicals have given up teaching the true Jesus Christ for paltry earthly power, we truly need a book describing what the title of this book says: that pastors in the modern church have sold out Jesus like money-changers in the Temple - using Christianity to make themselves stinky filthy rich.

Oh well, maybe I should write it.

Perhaps I will.

 

 

 

Overheard at Table 2: Beautifica 360 (2023)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60rQD4YIvIg

Last Friday night, the missus and I went out to sea Beautifica 360

It was a nice evening out ... mostly because I love going out with my wife and we both love going to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which is where Beautifica 360 is being played.

Essentially, it's a light show.  You sit in a big domed theatre and watch the lights play out overhead.

Yes, it's visually stunning and yes, it's technically proficient and very well done.

All the reviews will rave about it, telling you that it's a "CELEBRATION OF LIFE" and a "EXPERIENCE YOU WILL NEVER FORGET"

This is hyperbole.

It's a good show.

But it's not a great show.

For two primary reasons: the editing is choppy.  The individual scenes do not flow into each other in any coherent manner.  It started out very nicely, with a forest scene, and we are taken up through the trees into a night sky into different worlds and then after that, it's an hour long melange of different computer graphics twisting and twirling and it's apparently meant to WOW your senses, but frankly, you're left wondering "Where the hell is all this going?"

Ah! then, to answer that question, every once in awhile a voice comes out to tell you that this "is a celebration of LIFE" and to "breathe!"  and "let yourself love yourself" and all sorts of other palaver that, fifty years ago would be called "hippie shit" and thirty years ago would be called "New Age shit" and these days is called "Woke shit" - that's the second reason that this is a good show, but not a "great" show.  Not because that the message is bad (because yes, we all do need to be more loving) but because having this message across weird computer generated slap-dash-dot-strips of various colors simply makes no damn sense at all!  In short, this was an incoherent mess!

The music was good, especially the piece that sounded like post-Waters Pink Floyd (although my wife claims it sounded more like 1970s Santana ... but we'll just agree to disagree) and yes, I think I'll probably get the soundtrack, because that was much more entertaining than the visual.

But, even though I don't think it was great, it still was good.  Was it worth the $50 for the ticket?  Ehhh... probably in today's prices, sure, I mean, I'd've preferred half that, but then I'm a bit of a cheapskate.

Hope the album is no more than ten bucks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overheard at Booth 3: Melody and Harmony

Today, the band leader told one of the singers, "You take harmony"

... and I immediately threw out a little ditty

You take Harmony 
and I'll take Melody
and we'll let everyone sing along

And with a strong back beat
We will sound so sweet
and we will have a brand new song

 

... which of course, CAN have a double entendre, IF you have a dirty mind!

Sickos ... this was written AT CHURCH!

hahahahahaha!

Overheard at Booth 2: Molly, A Limerick

Molly

 

Molly, divorced, mother of three,
Used to work at the glass factory
She broke her back,
Got hooked on smack,
And that's how the cartels get rich, you see.

Molly, divorciada, madre de tres,
Trabajaba en una fábrica de vidrio, una vez
Se rompió su espalda
A las drogas engachada,
Por eso, enriquesen los cartelas, tu ves.

2022-0107

Written during the morning, just upon awaking. The Spanish translation may need a little work, but the English says exactly what I wish to say.  This, to me, connects the Mexican drug cartels with the primary source of their income: drugs.  Specifically, Fentanyl is one of the primary sources of income for the Sinaloa cartel, which exploded with violent reprisals against the Mexican government's capture of Ovidio Guzmán, son of El Chapo Guzmán, who has been running the cartel since his dad has been in US Federal prison for the past few years.

The limerick also touches on the reasons for the demand for illegal drugs: a culture in which the family unit is destroyed (divorced, line 1) and the lack of adequate family planning (mother of three), combined with the lack of (or insecurity of) manufacturing jobs (USED to work, line 2).  Such jobs were, in the middle of last century, well-paying jobs which could support a family of three.  However, these days, they are subject to economic "hiccups" and often are the source of immediate layoffs, not only during the COVID years, but whenever owners decide that cheaper labor can be had overseas.

Lines 3 and 4 (the couplet) speak directly to the over-prescribing of opioid medication by doctors who were either misled by or paid off by Big Pharma.   Big Pharma and various large chain Drug Stores have been found guilty over the past few years of deliberately pushing opioid medications, knowing full well that they were addictive.   Millions of Americans like the fictional Molly in this limerick, once they were unable to get prescription medication from their doctors, were unable to function adequately for normal basic daily tasks withOUT these pain-blockers, and have since turned to illegal drugs, such as Fentanyl.  

NOTE: I know that "smack" is the slang term for Heroin (also an opioid), but I do not know if it also can be used specifically as a term for Fentanyl.  I use it here in this poem to mean ALL opioid medications.

And thus, the last line demonstrates the most basic tenets of Economics: where there is a demand, there will be a supply.   

In short, while we Americans can smugly look at Mexico as a "failed state," we truly should look at what society we have created that has caused the conditions that allow the cartels to gain such wealth, power, and arms.

Nothing is ever made in a vacuum.  We are all interconnected.  And as such, we all bear some culpability for the violence that broke out this week in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.  

And Molly, as much as a victim as she may be, also bears part of the blame.

However, she probably won't ever know that.  She'll just take another pill to ease the pain, while she lets her kids play on her cell phone so they'll be quiet for awhile.

Overheard at Booth 3: Bible in a Year - the First Five Days

At our church, for Christmas, they gave each family a ""Read the Bible in One Year Bible" - each day has passages to read, that, when followed, we will have covered the entire Bible in one year.  My wife and I have been reading it together each night before bedtime.

These first five days have been passages from Genesis, Matthew, Psalms, and Proverbs, which I consider to be possible the four most well-known of the books of the Bible, even if other people may have others that are more favored (a lot of people like Romans, for example.  Logical people like John, or Paul's letters.  Kinky people like the Song of Solomon.  Depressives enjoy Ecclesiastes.  And the same type of people who try to convince you that they've read Finnegans Wake are those who say their favorite book is Revelation)...

But I digress.  There is something that I've noticed in these first five days of reading these books:

There is a lot of talk from God about humanity's violence.

And God ... well, He's rather against it.

First up - Cain kills Abel.  God says that's wrong.  Then Cain says, "If you send me out, then all these others evil people are going to kill me."  So God puts a mark on Cain to tell everyone, "You humans are not to hurt this guy, he's Mine!"

Then the Psalms are all about "don't sit with violent people" and "Why is everyone so angry?" "Why is everyone out to harm me, God?  Take care of this, why don'tcha?"  Note that the Psalms are acknowledging violence in humanity but asking GOD to take care of it. 

Then, Noah ... God says, "Whoa, these humans are out of control" and specifically mentions VIOLENCE.  So, God wipes everyone out.

Because humans were VIOLENT.

And the first thing God says to Noah after the flood ... (well, OK, the second thing.  First thing is "Go do it like bunnies and pop out babies) is that NO ONE SHOULD KILL ANYONE ELSE.

God specifically mandates that if an animal kills a human, animal dies.  If a human kills a human, then the community HAS to come together and kill the killer.   (That's pro-Capital Punishment, for all you squeamish out there)

And then there is Jesus Himself, Sermon on the Mount, after his intro saying that peaceful humble gentle snowflakes get to Heaven, the FIRST main out of his mouth is that "I know you were told that if you kill someone, you have to die, but I'm taking it a step further to say, if you even THINK something bad about someone, then you can't get right with God.  Not now.  Not ever.   Not until you fix it."

You know what I have NOT seen in these first five days?

Anti-gayness.

Yup, that's right.

Now, before the LGBTQ folk start shooting off their hoo-hah rainbow fireworks, just know that the Bible does frown on the pollution of the body (remember, God said to hump away to make babies ... yeah, the Catholics are actually right about that, but we'll get to that later).  So yes, there are other parts of the Bible where God is saying, "Don't be gay."  

But I'm saying, right here, right now, these FIRST FIVE DAYS, God is focused on the primary, numero uno, main problem with humans: our propensity to murder each other.

So let's wrap this post up, shall we ... in our culture today, when we wring our hands over drag queens reading books to kindergartners and at the same time allowing Kyle Rittenhouse to run around quoting  Bible verses and being some sort of Republican wet dream, we are so far from God that He is saying, "Wait, where'd everybody go?"

Because in truth, these Bibles verses, if taken literally, means that Rittenhouse should have been given a lethal injection.  

That's the word of God.

Food for thought.