later
It appears that I have vastly misunderstood, somehow, political divisions. Though, in hindsight, these things are clearer.
You are a
Social Liberal
(70% permissive)
and an...
Economic Liberal
(25% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Democrat
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid |
Now, it's not that I've put any great amount of faith in these tests, but they made me notice something. I've often called myself "politically conservative", but perhaps that's not really true. I don't want the policies to stay the same nearly as much as I want the visible effects to stay the same. Thus, my economic policy, for example, is really fairly restrictive. Now, I've always associated restriction with conservativism, but anyone can see that that's not always the same. Hmm. Now where am I?
Um, go Green Party!
Thursday
Oh, man, it wsa snowing like a monkey when I woke up today. It's stopped now, but man, it was crazy-looking.
Speaking of crazy thinggs falling outside my window, last night there was a huge THUNK right outside the window by my desk. I still don't know what it was, but it sounded hard, and it was creepy. Hmm.
So when I was reading earlier today, I came across the passage where Jesus denounces his mother and brothers. I thought, 'Man, he won't be getting them any Christmas presents this year!' Then I realised how ridiculous that was. Then I was overcome by an intense urge to listen to Jim Croce.
Sunday
So today I came along what might just be the locum durissimum of the Bible. Granted, I'm using a weighted scale, here, since one expects the New Testament to be a little less harsh than the old. Y'know, forgivenes.... and all that. And I was reading the NIV, too, which is not exactly know for harshness (though that may have something to do with how harsh it seems, by contrast; I just looked it up in Kig James's and it didn't really stand out that much).
The NIV reads Matthew 7:21-23 as, "Not everyone who says to me,'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
Now, there are many different interpritations of the Bible, and, obviously, this one condemns those who use the name of God without the spirit, eg. bad televangelists, that guy in Leap of Faith, the Crusades, the inquisition (I find it -interesting is the word I think I want- that my mind jumped first to modern examples, serveral of which are not listed for reasons of politic). But it totally doesn't stop there. We are not exempt from this purvue. I feel like this passage sneaks up on the message of grace and hamstrings it while no one is looking. I mean, it's still there, but now it's barely limping along. How can we trust in grace to be saved, when this passge seems to say all at once both that we cannot be saved by faith, unless it be carried out in our actions, (I apologise if I'm slipping into jargon; I'm hoping to make this rant intelligible to anyone who cares to read it, not just the churchy types) and that, forthermore, those actions which we might presume to be good (miracle, prophesy, clensing, all in the name of God) are no good at all, both from a practical salvation perspective (to which I, I admit, subscribe, and which is a very hard jar to get out of) and from a purely altruistic one (that is, one motivated only by the doing of God's will, and by nothing more, which school I greatly admire, but with which I have a very hard time in practice). Where does that leave us? What can we now do?
I also find it striking that this passage occurs soon under a most Ecumenical passage (sorry, I don't know the Latin for ecumenical), Matthew 7:16-18 & 20, which reads (in the NIV), "By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bda tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them."
Now, this is set up as a metphor of people, and seems to say that what matters about someone is what they produce, be it good fruit (Love, Peace, Kindness.... ya'll get the idea) or bad fruit (which I dare say include Hate, Strife, and Cruelty). Now, I'm going to set my previous politic motivations aside and give an example. One can see that whoever is responsible for the American War Machine (which is not, it should be noted, necessarily George W. Bush - he's got a lot of sneaky sorts in there with him, remember) has produced quite a lot of Strife and Cruelty, and most likely Hate as well. On the other hand, I have a friend, lovely girl, unchurched and un'Christian', who is nothing if not Loving and Kind. This passage emphasises (or for some, proclaims, possibly for the first time) that not all who do the work of God are labeled as such, and not all who are so labeled do such work.
So here, then, we have two passages: one comforting, the other confounding. But how does one really deal with either? Perhaps I err in presenting them seperately. Both deal with telling what is good from what is bad, and both leave one without many good clues for discretising them. Perhaps they cannot be. Perhaps they could not be.
And yet, some people think the Bible is black and white. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Me, I'm gonna go now and listen to "The Christians and the Pagans" by Dar Williams. Yeah, I know, Leah told me, I'm a girl. And after that, I'll listen to more Magnetic Fields. In the past day and a half, I've listened to "Reno Dakota" fifteen times. That's ten times a day, which, I grant, is only one minute out of every 144 listening to it. I mean, gross.
If anyone didn't get that, punch yourself. If you did, you should probably punch me. I'll be waiting.
Saturday
So I know I've sworn off royaly and all, but there's just something about princesses. You expect more from them somehow. That, I think, is another great evil of the modern age: bigger countries => fewer countries ; fewer countries, monarclasts => fewer princesses. I mean, think about it. Even if every country was a monarchy (*sigh*), there are only, what, 190 of them? If we're generous and round up to 200, and figure about 3 princesses per country, the population of the earth is, what, 6 billion? That's only 0.0000001 princesses per capita. That's not very high. I'd like to see that pushed up to at least 0.00005 ppc. But how? I'll have to think about this.
Other notes: Linoprint is awesome. I should do some more of that sometime. COVA? Or rather, VIAR? No, forget that. I want a Committee!
I also don't know if I'm just sick of blonde princesses, or if my wariness of them stems from the Daisy/Peach dichotomy. (In case it wasn't obvious, I'm on the Daisy side. I mean, older is better, right?) Just a thought.
Friday
"Instead of 'lamodifying', we're going to be doing something like 'decomfactoring'." -Kurtz, 10/28/2005
So.
So tonight I've read the full archives of three different webcomics. No, wait, I also read one in the afternoon. But, hey, I can't play videogames on asbestos while ripping all of my music onto it. That's right. You heard me. I accidentally deleted ALL of my music. And my settings. Because I'm smart.
So seriously, my opinion of both MicroSoft (grr, XP! Why can't you behave more like 98?) and Apple (grr, iTunes, why can't you behave more like WinAmp?) just dropped, like, by 30 somethings. Probably bajillions. I didn't like either that much before, though, right? Right. Grr.
So.
So FINALS are done. "w00t". Except they're not. Reppy is 'graciously' 'allowing' Paul and I to use Christmas break to 'finish' our project. So I'm not done.
Wow, it's been so long since I've written 'finnish' with only one n. Looks freakin' weird, man.
So "Reno Dakota" is such an awesome song.
I know "He Seems Like a Nice Guy" is on one of these CDs, but I have no idea which one. And now I'm gonna have "Papa Was a Rodeo" stuck in my head like for-ev-ah.
I need "Iowa". Need. With an N.
So.
Two of those comics I read were about marriage. One was about, uh, well.... Hey, suburbia! ....and I really can't add anything to that. The other one was about some Jedi. They were actually faux-Jedi. There was even a faux-wookie. It was nifty. Nine hours to go!
Hmmm. Nine-hour toga?
So.
later
"For some reason I think that's funny. Probably because I hate dwarves." -Danit, 12/03/2005
So the other day I czeched the guestbook (something I do obsessively, by the by), and discovered a most curious message from someone going by 'wisconsin mortgage low interest personal loan'. That's right, spam. In my guestbook. It's downright inspiring. What a wondrous time we live in, where even the scum can be so creative. I love it. Love it. But you know how, often, when you get spam, it's on crack? Well, take a look at what they said:
thermodynamic stupor Hackett stagers maniacs.agonized cadaver credit debt consolidation orchard bank credit card .
I liek the part about "aginized cadaver". Great stuff, graet stuff. They left a website, even. Not, unfortunately, about agonised cadavers. From the looks of it, about mortgages. Wisconsin mortgages. If there's one thing I hate, if comes from the same set that Wisconsin Mortgages are in. Blecth. So I deleted it.
And for the "Why are you here?" field, they chose "The voices in my head told me to come." But what else could one expect?
Monday, Final Week
"So much for that knuckle." -Brian, 12/05/2005
My schedule for next quarter is AWESOME.
MW, 12:00 - 13:30 : Bollywood India: Film & History
MWF 13:30 : Theory of Algorithms
M, 14:30 - 17:20 : St
So awesome. Plus, I did well enough on the last Latin quiz that I'm not screwed for the final! Yay!
Brian just hurt his hand punching things! Yay!
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