(from The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan)
'This miry Slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore is it called the Slough of Despond: for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place; and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.'
Slough of Despond
by John P. Graboski
Performed by Oho June 1, 2013
at Jango's Block Party in Brooklyn
I have a day-to-day calendar called "S is for Stupid" by Leland Gregory which displays one factual and truly stupid fact for each day of the year. Very amusing. Sometimes controversial. ALWAYS stupid.
While driving home from an Oho rehearsal the other night, I spotted something that could very well qualify for the cover of the day-to-day calendar "S is for Stupid". At least it appeared stupid to me in its imprecision as well as its chauvinism. I really don't know what the man was trying to tell me. I also do not believe he is a member of the Green or the Justice political parties.
I don't recall the exact punctuation, but the message, appearing on the spare-tire cover mounted at the rear of an SUV stated:
"Women, Guns, Freedom - America"
I believe I will be writing to Leland Gregory very soon.
(taken from http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/ by Viveca Novak on Friday, April 10, 2009)
A widely circulated e-mail contains a number of false claims about the urban legend-busting Snopes.com and its proprietors, Barbara and David Mikkelson, who started the site in 1995 and still run it. They’re accused of hiding their identities, doing shoddy research, producing articles with a liberal bent and discrediting an anti-Obama State Farm agent out of partisanship.
One issue prompting the tirade was a sign Gregg posted last summer outside his office in Mandeville, La. It said, "A taxpayer voting for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders." Snopes.com wrote it up in an article headlined "Chicken Hawked." The e-mail writer says that "they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ‘ever’ took place." But that’s exactly what did happen, according a company representative.
In her article, Barbara Mikkelson didn’t actually use the word "pressured" as the e-mail claims. What she said was: "A State Farm representative said that Bud Gregg’s office sign bore these messages until 3 July 2008 and that the company had requested the sign be removed as soon as they became aware of it because the sign was inconsistent with State Farm’s policy of not endorsing candidates or taking sides in political campaigns."
And State Farm spokeswoman Molly Quirk-Kirby confirmed in a letter to us the same thing she had told Snopes.com earlier: "Management requested the sign be removed as soon as its presence became known. It was taken down on July 3, 2008. Mr. Gregg’s sign was not endorsed by, nor consistent with State Farm’s corporate practices. The company does not endorse candidates, nor take sides in political campaigns." The e-mail’s author says the Mikkelsons didn’t call Gregg, and David says that’s true. He says he sent the insurance agent an e-mail, but did not receive a response.
The e-mail goes on: "Then it has been learned the Mikkelson’s are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal," adding: "There has been much criticism lately over the internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson’s liberalism revealing itself in their website findings." The author cites no evidence and no sources for either of these propositions.
We asked David. He told us that Barbara is a Canadian citizen, and as such isn’t allowed to vote here or contribute money to U.S. candidates. As for him, "My sole involvement in politics is on Election Day to go out and vote. I’ve never joined a party, worked for a campaign or donated money to a candidate. . . You’d be hard-pressed to find two more apolitical people," David Mikkelson said. . ."
The e-mail also accuses the Mikkelsons of "hiding" their identities. "Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it," the message claims. That’s nonsense. It may well be that the author of this e-mail was ignorant of the Mikkelsons until recently, but it’s never been a secret who is behind Snopes.com. We even dug up a reference to David Mikkelson from 1995, a year when the Internet was in its infancy. A collection of short items under the headline "A Special Report: The Virtual Valley" in the Los Angeles Times included a photo of him.
The e-mail’s last paragraph advises that everyone who goes to Snopes.com for "the bottom line facts" should "proceed with caution." We think that’s terrific advice, not just in connection with material on Snopes but for practically anything a reader finds online — including articles on FactCheck.org. The very reason we list our sources (as does Snopes.com) and provide links is so that readers can check things out for themselves. . .
The mistakes (in the email) could have been avoided if the authors had contacted the couple. "None of them did," Mikkelson said.
(source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/pop-tart-gun-bill_n_2852472.html)
7-year-old Josh Welch was suspended from his Maryland school for two days for eating a toaster pastry as below:
"It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn't," Welch told Baltimore Fox station WBFF. "All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn't look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda."
A Maryland lawmaker, who is among those who think that Park Elementary School may have doled out too harsh a punishment, has now introduced a bill to stop students who chew Pop-Tarts, or other not-ordinarily-dangerous materials, into the shape of a gun -- or who merely hold their fingers into the shape of a gun -- from being suspended again.
Senate Bill 1058 -- "The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013" -- has been given an alternative moniker by conservative website The Daily Caller: the "Toaster Pastry Gun Freedom Act".
Sen. J. B. Jennings, a Republican representing Baltimore and Hartford counties, introduced this legislation to prohibit students from being suspended for "mak[ing] a hand shape or gesture resembling a gun" -- the bill would also stop principals from expelling students who bring to school "any other object that resembles a gun but serves another purpose."
(source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/glen-burnie/bs-md-nra-gun-pastry-20130529,0,1321969.story)
At a fundraiser for Anne Arundel County Republicans, House Minority Leader Nicholaus R. Kipke presented Josh Welch with the membership, which cost $550, during a tongue-in-cheek presentation that involved a Pop-Tart fashioned into pistol and gun safety tips.
Josh said he didn't know what the NRA was or what it meant to have a membership, but chimed in when his parents were asked whether anyone else in his family belonged to the NRA. "Nope, only me," he said.
He also said: "Everyone keeps asking me why I did it," Josh said. "I don't know why I did it. ... I wish people would stop asking me about it. It'll probably go on for 45 years or something."
I have never 'unfriended' a person in my life. Well, never intentionally anyway. . . until now. And I've got to say it has been an emotional experience. Why did I do it? Quite simply the 'friend' in question was totally unwilling to be reasonable. More specifically, the 'friend' chose to continuously post personal testimonials for Rush Limbaugh, gushing about the vast amounts of knowledge that were imparted through his radio broadcasts.
Now we certainly all possess our own personal quirks, preferences, tastes, likes and dislikes, and that I can accept and live with. Certainly my friends should be entitled to all these things and my perception (or acceptance of them) is most certainly totally irrelevant.
But no matter how much I agree or disagree with a friend on ANY matter, one factor that determines just how good or desirable a friendship really is, is how one chooses to address (or not address) these matters.
Furthermore, in this digital day and age, it is quite inconceivable that anyone would accept, let alone forcefully evangelize armed with items which are at the very least shall we say, "suspect"?
Maybe it's simply a matter of discretion. Anyway, in the future, one quality for which I will heretofore assess any potential new friends, will most certainly be discretion.
(from wikipedia.com)
". . . (Mitch) Hurwitz was chosen by Ron Howard to create a sitcom about a rich dysfunctional family, which eventually turned into Arrested Development. Hurwitz wrote the pilot in 2002, which was filmed in March 2003. FOX added the show to its schedule in May. Although the show premiered to stunning reviews from television critics around the country, the show was plagued by low ratings throughout its three-season run. In July 2004, the show was nominated for 7 Primetime Emmy Awards and won 5, including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series.
In the second season, ratings decreased further and the show was cut down to 18 episodes instead of the planned 22 episodes. Nevertheless, the show was still critically acclaimed and was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards.
In the show's third and final season on FOX, Hurwitz tried to keep Arrested Development on the air, but did not have the advertising funding to promote the series. The show was again cut down, from 18 episodes to 13. FOX announced the cancellation of the show before the production of the final five episodes.
After seven years off the air, Arrested Development returned for a fourth season on the online movie & tv streaming site Netflix on May 26, 2013. . ."
(more from Christopher Hitchens circa 1998 http://www.american-buddha.com/material.high.htm)
". . .The Dalai Lama has come out in support of the thermonuclear tests recently conducted by the Indian state, and has done so in the very language of the chauvinist parties who now control that state's affairs. The "developed" countries, he says, must realize that India is a major contender and should not concern themselves with its internal affairs. This is a perfectly realpolitik statement, so crass and banal and opportunist that it would not deserve any comment if it came from another source.
"Think different," says the ungrammatical Apple Computer advertisement that features the serene visage of His Holiness. Among the untested assumptions of this billboard campaign is the widely and lazily held belief that "Oriental" religion is different from other faiths: less dogmatic, more contemplative, more ... transcendental. This blissful, thoughtless exceptionalism has been conveyed to the West through a succession of mediums and narratives, ranging from the pulp novel "Lost Horizon," by James Hilton (creator of Mr. Chips as well as Shangri-La), to the memoir "Seven Years in Tibet," by SS veteran Heinrich Harrer, prettified for the screen by Brad Pitt. China's foul conduct in an occupied land, combined with a Hollywood cult that almost exceeds the power of Scientology, has fused with weightless Maharishi and Bhagwan-type babble to create an image of an idealized Tibet and of a saintly god-king. So perhaps the Apple injunction to think differently is worth heeding.
The greatest triumph that modern PR can offer is the transcendent success of having your words and actions judged by your reputation, rather than the other way about. The "spiritual leader" of Tibet has enjoyed this unassailable status for some time now, becoming a byword and synonym for saintly and ethereal values. Why this doesn't put people on their guard I'll never know. But here are some other facts about the serene leader that, dwarfed as they are by his endorsement of nuclear weapons, are still worth knowing and still generally unknown.
Shoko Asahara, leader of the Supreme Truth cult in Japan and spreader of sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway, donated 45 million rupees, or about 170 million yen (about $1.2 million), to the Dalai Lama and was rewarded for his efforts by several high-level meetings with the divine one.
Steven Seagal, the robotic and moronic "actor" who gave us "Hard to Kill" and "Under Siege," has been proclaimed a reincarnated lama and a sacred vessel or "tulku" of Tibetan Buddhism. This decision, ratified by Penor Rinpoche, supreme head of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, was initially received with incredulity by Richard Gere, who had hitherto believed himself to be the superstar most favored. "If someone's a tulku, that's great," he was quoted as saying. "But no one knows if that's true." How insightful, if only accidentally. At a subsequent Los Angeles appearance by the Dalai Lama, Seagal was seated in the front row and Gere two rows back, thus giving the latter's humility and submissiveness a day at the races. Suggestions that Seagal's fortune helped elevate him to the Himalayan status of tulku are not completely discounted even by some adepts and initiates.
Supporters of the Dorge Shugden deity -- a "Dharma protector" and an ancient object of worship and propitiation in Tibet -- have been threatened with violence and ostracism and even death following the Dalai Lama's abrupt prohibition of this once-venerated godhead. A Swiss television documentary graphically intercuts footage of His Holiness, denying all knowledge of menace and intimidation, with scenes of his followers' enthusiastically promulgating "Wanted" posters and other paraphernalia of excommunication and persecution.
While he denies being a Buddhist "Pope," the Dalai Lama is never happier than when brooding in a celibate manner on the sex lives of people he has never met. "Sexual misconduct for men and women consists of oral and anal sex," he has repeatedly said in promoting his book on these matters. "Using one's hand, that is sexual misconduct." But, as ever with religious stipulations, there is a nutty escape clause. "To have sexual relations with a prostitute paid by you and not by a third person does not constitute improper behavior." Not all of this can have been said just to placate Richard Gere, or to attract the royalties from "Pretty Woman."
I have talked to a few Dorge Shugden adherents, who seem sincere enough and who certainly seem frightened enough, but I can't go along with their insistence on the "irony" of all this. Buddhism can be as hysterical and sanguinary as any other system that relies on faith and tribe. Lon Nol's Cambodian army was Buddhist at least in name. Solomon Bandaranaike, first elected leader of independent Sri Lanka, was assassinated by a Buddhist militant. It was Buddhist-led pogroms against the Tamils that opened the long and disastrous communal war that ruins Sri Lanka to this day. The gorgeously named SLORC, the military fascism that runs Burma, does so nominally as a Buddhist junta. I have even heard it whispered that in old Tibet, that pristine and contemplative land, the lamas were the allies of feudalism and unsmilingly inflicted medieval punishments such as blinding and flogging unto death.
Yet the entire Western mass media is uncritically at the service of a mere mortal who, at the very least, proclaims the utter nonsense of reincarnation and who affirms the sinister if not indeed crazy belief that death is but a stage in a grand cycle of what appears to be futility and subjection. What need, then, to worry about nuclear weaponry, or sectarian frenzy, or the sale of indulgences to men of the stamp of Steven Seagal? "Harmony" will doubtless kick in. During his visit to Beijing, our sentimental Baptist hypocrite of a president turned to his dictator host, recommended that he meet with the Dalai Lama and assured him that the two of them would get on well. That might easily turn out to be the case. Both are very much creatures of the material world. . . "
