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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
Extract from the New York Times. I found this a good read, although searching the Bible for answers is not a pastime of mine.
"So when God made homosexuals who fall deeply, achingly in love with each other, did he goof?
"That seems implicit in the measures opposing gay marriage on the ballots of 11 states. All may pass; Oregon is the only state where the outcome seems uncertain.
"Over the last couple of months, I've been researching the question of how the Bible regards homosexuality. Social liberals tend to be uncomfortable with religious arguments, but that is the ground on which political battles are often decided in America -- as when a Texas governor, Miriam 'Ma' Ferguson, barred the teaching of foreign languages about 80 years ago, saying, 'If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us.' [LOL!]
"I think it's presumptuous of conservatives to assume that God is on their side. But since Americans are twice as likely to believe in the Devil as in evolution, I also think it's stupid of liberals to forfeit the religious field ...
"The religious right cites one part of the New Testament that clearly does condemn male homosexuality -- not in Jesus' words, but in Paul's. The right has a tougher time explaining why lesbians shouldn't marry because the Bible has no unequivocal condemnation of lesbian sex.
"A passage in Romans 1 objects to women engaging in 'unnatural' sex, and this probably does mean lesbian sex, according to Bernadette Brooten, the author of a fascinating study of early Christian attitudes toward lesbians. But it's also possible that Paul was referring to sex during menstruation or to women who are aggressive during sex.
"In any case, do we really want to make Paul our lawgiver? Will we enforce Paul's instruction that women veil themselves and keep their hair long? (Note to President Bush: If you want to obey Paul, why don't you start by veiling Laura and keeping her hair long, and only then move on to barring gay marriages.)
"Given these ambiguities, is there any solution? One would be to emphasize the sentiment in Genesis that 'it is not good for the human to be alone', and allow gay lovers to marry.
"Or there's another solution. Paul disapproves of marriage except for the sex-obsessed, saying that it is best 'to remain unmarried as I am'. So if we're going to cherry-pick biblical phrases and ignore the central message of love, then perhaps we should just ban marriage altogether?" [All emphasis mine]
Computer health report It's been quite a week for poor Esmeralda. First it was the long blackout after our big storm, then two days in a row the excessive humidity caused short circuits. Then this damn trojan or worm. Then today, unrelated to any of this, my ISP wouldn't connect for hours. What's left, chicken pox?
I've run about four or five virus scanners over Esmeralda (such a slow process, and so many reboots, I'm heartily sick of it) but no luck yet. One of them, Kapersky, picked up about 10 nasties that better-known programs had missed, but I still can't open my Outlook Express because when I do, the mystery bug mails out to incoming email correspondents. Until I get this fixed, if anyone feels they need to contact me, the best place is on the tagboard, thanks. I'll check in as I'm able. Hopefully reinstalling Windows tomorrow will solve it.
There're some really tasty nuggets in this one....
(If you're having trouble accessing this page, just go to the link at my EP-RANTS page, and you can also see my suggestion for a timely DVD double feature.
Cheers,
ERIC PREDOEHL a proud supporter of the U.S. Constitution (especially Bill of Rights), the Geneva Convention, and verifiable voting http://ep-rants.blogspot.com/
"New York (Reuters Health) - Many herbal remedies and nutritional supplements can damage the eyes, including some alternative therapies that are used by people trying to correct eye problems, new research reports.
"According to a review of reported cases and medical literature, commonly used supplements including chamomile, ginkgo biloba, licorice, vitamin A and echinacea can cause a myriad of eye problems.
"Study author Dr. Frederick Fraunfelder explained that supplements become dangerous to the eyes when people take them in large doses. They can cause problems including severe conjunctivitis, eye irritation, retinal bleeding and temporary loss of vision, the study found ...
"Fraunfelder, who is based at the Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Oregon, explained that most people are unaware of how damaging supplements can be to the eyes. 'Most consumers assume because a product is naturally occurring it is safe,' he said.
"As a result, about forty percent of people who use alternative therapies do not discuss them with their doctors." [My emphasis]
"MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Duma ratified the Kyoto Protocol on Friday, clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change pact to come into force worldwide.
"The State Duma's ratification pushes the 126-nation U.N. accord - aimed at battling global warming - over the threshold of 55 percent of developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions needed to make it internationally binding, after a U.S. pullout in 2001."
Dunno how, but I've been snagged by an annoying email virus. It doesn't seem harmful except for its damn annoying replication through my Outlook Express. It's sending itself, not to my address book, which I had already pared down to almost nothing in case such a situation occurred, but to addresses in my Inbox. Even to spammers, which is a laugh, I guess.
So far the scanners I've used haven't been able to identify it, but I'm working on it. No emails from me for a while, gang. Of course, the Bloglet subscriptions remain unaffected.
Bush is no devout evangelical. In fact, he may not be a Christian at all. [Damn straight! Jesus was a liberal! -v]
10/19/04 "American Prospect" -- Late in the summer, at the Republican national convention in New York, a movie billed as the conservative alternative to Fahrenheit 9/11 debuted for the party faithful. The film, George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, opens with a montage of a billowing American flag, a softly lit portrait of Jesus in Gethsemane, and a shot of the tawny profile of our 43rd president with his eyes gazing heavenward. Myriad times throughout the film Bush is referred to reverently as a man of faith.
Like no president in recent memory, George W. Bush wields his Christian righteousness like a flaming sword. Indeed, hundreds of news stories and nearly half a dozen books have evinced a White House that, according to BBC Washington correspondent Justin Webb, “hums to the sound of prayer.” Yet for the past four years the mainstream press has trod lightly, rarely venturing beyond the biographical to probe the depth, or sincerity, of Bush's Christian beliefs. Bush has no doubt benefited from the media’s reluctance; Newsweek, for example, in the heat of the run-up to the Iraq War, ran a cover package on the president’s faith under the headline “Bush and God” -- a story whose timing lent the war the aura of having heavenly sanction. Even lefty believers like Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners, and Amy Sullivan, journalist and Democratic adviser, politely maintain that Bush’s faith is strong, if misguided.
Indeed, in an 8,000-word lamentation appearing in The New York Times Magazine last weekend, Ron Suskind attempted to trace Bush’s lack of intellectual curiosity, and the policy disasters that have stemmed from that, back to his relationship with God. “That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge,” Suskind wrote. In other words, the devil, as it were, is lurking among the articles of faith, but not in the heart of the man.
This is a huge mistake, because when judged by his deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not demonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists, evangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In fact, the available evidence raises serious questions about whether Bush is really a Christian at all.
Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in the Bush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language and themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is no substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday school know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his commandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case, faith without works is not just dead faith -- it’s evangelical agitprop.
"The all-out US assault on Falluja is likely to be delayed until after the American presidential elections, but Tony Blair may face a decision before then on whether British troops will provide a support role in the US sector, Whitehall sources said yesterday.
"Ministers have been caught badly off balance by the widespread assumption that they were preparing to bolster the US military as a political demonstration of support for George Bush ahead of the November 2 poll.
"Amid signs of a serious backbench revolt, ministers would like to defer a decision until after the US poll. They were last night holding talks with Labour backbenchers to forestall a full-scale rebellion, re-assuring them the request had come from the military and was totally focused on ensuring credible nationwide elections in Iraq." [My emphasis above]
"Conservative elements in Burma's military junta have ousted Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and put him under house arrest, Thai officials say.
"'Khin Nyunt was removed from his position,' Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters.
"In recent months diplomats have spoken of a power struggle between Khin Nyunt, number three in Burma's hierarchy, and the hard-line Senior General Than Shwe ...
"Khin Nyunt was seen as favouring talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and soon after his appointment announced a seven-point roadmap to democracy.
"But Than Shwe remains strongly opposed to any role for the Nobel laureate.
"Her release was widely expected prior to the resumption of the National Convention in May but Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest."
"The obesity epidemic is spreading to the animal world, with veterinary surgeons reporting an alarming increase in the number of overweight cats and dogs ...
"Obesity was one of a growing number of 'human style' illnesses highlighted in a survey of vets and pet owners. Others included hyperactivity, stress, diabetes, arthritis and depression."
Good lord. Stress? And depression? And all caused by colourings, flavourings and preservatives, no doubt. My mother used to feed the cat with scraps she got free from the butcher. Including fish heads. But who sees fish being gutted in a butcher's any more? Even carrots come chopped into cute little 'sticks', and kids nowadays think they grow like that. [sigh] I'm off to bed, to dream of cheddar that left a tang in my mouth ...
St Luke's Day, The Horn Fair, Charlton, near London The Horn Fair was held for three days annually from St Luke's Day (October 18) and was named after the custom of carrying horns and wearing them. A foreign traveller in 1598 wrote that there was at Ratcliffe, nearby, a long pole with ram's horns upon it, representing “wilful and contented cuckolds”.
The horned man, or Green Man, was a representation of the ancient horned god Herne (who derived from the Celtic horned god Cernunnos), and it is interesting to note that the fair, now held at Hornfair Park, was formerly held at Cuckold’s Point, East London.
At the fair there was a procession, which went three times around the church, of people wearing horns. There were many wild practices, such as whipping females with sprigs of furze, giving rise to the expression “all is fair at Horn Fair”. Men would often wear women's clothes. Toys made of horns were sold; even the gingerbread on sale had horns. There used to be a sermon preached on the day at Charlton Church, but it had been discontinued by Victorian times.
In 1973, the Horn Fair was revived, but the new Horn Fair is a pale shadow of the once great fair of Charlton.
St Luke is represented in art as an ox, or writing with an ox or cow beside him, so it is likely the ancient Herne cult was transmuted into a cult of Luke. The church at Charlton had stained glass windows, though largely destroyed in time of the troubles in Charles I's reign, showing St Luke's ox with wings on its back and horns on its head.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
*Ø* Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?
"Next week, something will happen that will unmask the upside-down morality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. On October 21, Iraq will pay $200m in war reparations to some of the richest countries and corporations in the world.
"If that seems backwards, it's because it is. Iraqis have never been awarded reparations for any of the crimes they suffered under Saddam, or the brutal sanctions regime that claimed the lives of at least half a million people, or the US-led invasion, which the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, recently called 'illegal'. Instead, Iraqis are still being forced to pay reparations for crimes committed by their former dictator.
"Quite apart from its crushing $125bn sovereign debt, Iraq has paid $18.8bn in reparations stemming from Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. This is not in itself surprising: as a condition of the ceasefire that ended the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam agreed to pay damages stemming from the invasion. More than 50 countries have made claims, with most of the money awarded to Kuwait. What is surprising is that even after Saddam was overthrown, the payments from Iraq have continued.
"Since Saddam was toppled in April, Iraq has paid out $1.8bn in reparations to the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), the Geneva-based quasi tribunal that assesses claims and disburses awards. Of those payments, $37m have gone to Britain and $32.8m have gone to the United States. That's right: in the past 18 months, Iraq's occupiers have collected $69.8m in reparation payments from the desperate people they have been occupying. But it gets worse: the vast majority of those payments, 78%, have gone to multinational corporations, according to statistics on the UNCC website ...
"Here is a small sample of who has been getting 'reparation' awards from Iraq: Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m), Nestlé ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton ($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they 'lost profits' or, in the case of American Express, experienced a 'decline in business' because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait. One of the biggest winners has been Texaco, which was awarded $505m in 1999. According to a UNCC spokesperson, only 12% of that reparation award has been paid, which means hundreds of millions more will have to come out of the coffers of post-Saddam Iraq."
I've installed Google's new desktop search engine (see my post yesterday). So far I'm impressed, though it does seem to have slowed down Esmeralda a bit, and I'm not sure how long I can live with that. At least I can turn it off from the toolbar at the bottom of Esme's monitor when I want to burn rubber.
When you search for something in the normal Google bar, up come related items on your computer along with web links. As you can see (I hope) from the fuzzy screenshot above, when I did a test run with the keywords "Cardiff Giant", Google instantaneously gave me all the usual URLs plus a link to the 46 references on my own computer (the aforementioned lovely Esmeralda), and two additional links that showed me very recent things: the first being one of my own Word docs with a reference to Cardiff Giant, and the other being a Wikipedia page that I had opened an hour or two before. If I'd had an email or text file with the keywords in them, they would show up in the list as well.
Although the Google link I gave yesterday didn't mention it, I was delighted to discover that the desktop tool also finds images in its lightning-fast search, showing me the images of the Cardiff Giant I have (another good reason to label images well). That's great from my POV as I'm always looking for something in what I guess by now must be tens of thousands of images on Esme.
Apart from maybe a 10 - 15 per cent decrease in computer speed when the desktop app is running (or, so I think, but I'm not entirely sure – how can one be?), what I see as the biggest drawback would be for people who want privacy. As I live alone, there's no one looking over my shoulder, except maybe God. But the possibilities of something private showing up in the new-style Google search are endless, and easy to imagine. With that caveat, and a certain acceptance of decline in processing speed in exchange for a brilliant desktop search, I'm happy with the new tool.
As for the extended privacy problem vis a vis Echelon and the CIA, I doubt that there's anything those guys can't find through your Net connection anyway. So even though there are rumours of Google-CIA connections, and any self-respecting intelligence agency would obviously have recruited Google by now, I wouldn't sweat it. Forget about privacy. You've had none for years.
*Ø* UK: Former Ambassador drags Foreign Office into torture row
"The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has accused the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, of personally agreeing to the use of intelligence from the Uzbek government that had been obtained under torture ...
"Mr Murray was dismissed as Britain's ambassador in Tashkent on Wednesday night after a 15-month dispute. He has vowed to take legal action ...
"Mr Murray, who says his opposition to the Foreign Office's acceptance of such information led to his dismissal, has made a series of formal complaints to the Foreign Office since March 2003.
"The latest, written in July, was leaked this week to the Financial Times. He wrote: 'Tortured dupes are forced to sign confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe - that they and we are fighting the same war against terror ... This is morally, legally and practically wrong'."
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"So when God made homosexuals who fall deeply, achingly in love with each other, did he goof?
"New York (Reuters Health) - Many herbal remedies and nutritional supplements can damage the eyes, including some alternative therapies that are used by people trying to correct eye problems, new research reports. 
"More than 50 tigers in a Thai zoo have been put down after they showed symptoms of bird flu.
"MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Duma ratified the Kyoto Protocol on Friday, clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change pact to come into force worldwide. 
It will take me a bit of time to catch up after the biggest, wildest storm I can remember.
"Conservative elements in Burma's military junta have ousted Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and put him under house arrest, Thai officials say. 
"The obesity epidemic is spreading to the animal world, with veterinary surgeons reporting an alarming increase in the number of overweight cats and dogs ...
St Luke's Day, The Horn Fair, Charlton, near London
"Next week, something will happen that will unmask the upside-down morality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. On October 21, Iraq will pay $200m in war reparations to some of the richest countries and corporations in the world.
"The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has accused the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, of personally agreeing to the use of intelligence from the Uzbek government that had been obtained under torture ...