Friday, November 04, 2011

Hither and thither 11/4/11

It's been another interesting week. Let's dive in to our weekly hodge-podge. Expect updates until noon!
  • First: you know, we loved Scotland. There is no "but." Even with the crazy roads and traffic signs, we loved it, period. We'd probably move there in a heartbeat if there were a way. Yet, I have to say, for much of it, this entrepreneur could have made a real financial killing.
  • Seriously. I mean, I'm not one of these people that goes around taking artificial ethnicity counts. But I did notice an overwhelmingly low melanin average as we toured the green hills. Then when we got into Edinburgh, I felt a little more at home in terms of what I'm accustomed to.
  • One of the highlights I can share was an interview on the Janet Mefferd show about the Proverbs book
  • Thinking of our recent lively discussion about singleness and all, I note that Kevin DeYoung prints reactions of a single woman, opining as to what people ought not to say to such. Read it, think about it. My reaction, however, is similar to what I feel when I hear blacks make fun or (or express hurt over) stupid things whites say — and, God knows, we can say some awfully stupid things. But, hearing these diatribes, my first response is: Gosh, then, I'd better not say anything. Because (again) God knows I am as capable of burbling out idiocy as anyone else. Safest course is not to speak.
  • There has to be some gracious broad middle that allows for mistakes and growth without an air of defensive suspicion or the terror of walking on eggshells. Doesn't there?
  • Now, to the other side of the altar, brother Thabiti puts up an absolutely wonderful vid of a father and daughter dancing at her wedding. Hysterical and fun; I defy you not to smile.
  • Good thing no one recorded DAOD and I doing the salsa at her wedding, to this.
  • Wow. Susan found a bride with a serious texting addition problem. I fear that marriage will Kardash.
  • Loyal reader 3GD points out a useful application for determining how many Kardashians you've been married.
  • Hmmm.
  • I think that facial transplant technology is really amaz... oh, wait. No. It's not facial transplant. It's... it's... ewwwww.
  • So, how many doctors said to themselves, "Say, I wonder if... nahhh!" before one doc said "By George, I'm going to do this!"? And who's the poor soul who was so miserable he agreed to, to, to you know... ugh.
  • Hunh. Reformed Halloween masks? (thx Jack)
  • At last, we have an animated illustration of what trolls do on unmoderated blogs:
  • So: many painters try to make paintings that look like peopleDawn Lewis found an artist who makes people look like paintings.
  • What would Christmas be without a Justin Bieber Christmas album?
  • "Just fine," I'm thinking. (Blame Joel Griffith for even raising the topic)
  • Now for this week's BibChr Important Safety Tip:
  • "Hey Nurse! Help me kill this kidor you're fired." Welcome to the United States of Bizarroland.
  • Professor Jim Hamilton shows why I love him in post one and post two today on Dr. Peter Enns, one of Biologos' New Best Friends. I love him because he doesn't write like a Raised-Pinkie Blogger. He writes like someone who loves and cares about truth, and doesn't like to see the Bible smarmily trampled. Of Enns' lecture, he says it's "old and boring and full of fallacies," and then backs up what he's saying. Check it out.
  • I don't care who you are, you'll love what Jill sent me: the fifty nerdiest pumpkin carvings. Here's one:
  • We close with a distressed gaze at a gent who's just a little too much into "Realized Eschatology." I mean, dude, dude, dude! The Millennium ain't here yet!
  • Then these:















THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

35 comments:

Barbara said...

Um. That transplant. Yeesh. One would have to be absolutely desperate but still. And think of the staff having to perform/assist in this! I had a flashback to the late 90s when they thought they would bring back "pharmaceutical" maggots and leeches for wound care. I remember...(remainder deleted for the sake of everyone's breakfast. You're welcome.)

Nat'l Review article on nurses forced to perform abortions - I'm mixed on that, because while in America a nurse should never have to participate in such a thing in order to keep her job, we know that being faithful to Christ in this world comes with a cost - He said as much, and while I want to refrain from making judgments about the depth of the beliefs of those who stick around and go against their stated beliefs....I just know that there are other nursing jobs out there that by their very nature would never put a nurse in such a position. In nursing and other "people professions" as in the world, there are just some jobs that Christians can not hold in good conscience and faithfulness. Would that it were not true, but it is. But the comments under that article are an absolutely chilling look into that secular customer-service worldview.

David Regier said...

Hey! I work best under pressure!

And you. . . you poster of rabbit-trail distractions. . .

You're my enabler. I bet there's a proverb for that, somewhere.

DJP said...

Sort of a counterpart to iron sharpening iron, only involving rubber or sludge?

(c:

The Squirrel said...

Um... couldn't you just... um... eat some yogurt?

Just sayin'...

Squirrel

Always Reforming said...

Pictures of cats and bacon never get old...Never!

GrammaMack said...

Our eldest son had C. difficile last year, and it is brutal. He was a healthy young man to begin with, and he was sick for weeks, unable to keep anything down for days, along with the other main effect, and it was difficult for him to beat. It's no wonder that elderly people often die from it. If the fecal transplant works, it's a great thing!

Moon said...

"Wow. Susan found a bride with a serious texting addition problem. I fear that marriage will Kardash." LOL Dan i can't believe you actually just said kardash :P too funny...

@Squirrel nope :P it just ain't enough....think of it this way: its just trash from one garbage can to another...

That video Thabiti posted was really cute! :) I danced Merengue with my dad, that was a lot of fun :)

DJP said...

Dancing with my dear and only daughter at her wedding is among my Happiest. Memories. EVER.

Colloquist said...

I overslept AND there's an H&T to browse? Great. There goes my day. :)

Justin Bieber was "Under the Mistletoe" alright.

And the woman painting people to look like a painting - really amazing images, but all I could think was, how do they sit *still* long enough to get painted?!

Thanks for making my morning coffee that much more enjoyable, Dan. :)

Kris N. said...

Your comment on Scotland had me laughing, because we live in rural Minnesota, and my husband (a Mexican) is the only minority for miles. We were concerned when we moved there, but our (small) community embraced him. However, he could have a stand like that!

I work in the medical field, and we have two hospitals. One does abortions, and the other, a hospital founded by nuns, does not. There has been significant controversy over the past five years, as some people in the community want the "religious" hospital to allow abortions, because that hospital (they say) is more accomodating and comfortable than the other one. You can imagine the editorials in the paper on this topic.

Warren said...

Funny, your reaction to Kevin DeYoung's post was the same as mine. Greatly enjoying TWTG by the way. Thanks for writing.

DJP said...

It may just be you and me, Warren; but we'll stick together on this one.

Thanks for reading WTG, so glad you're enjoying.

Fred Butler said...

Our friend rabbit already noted it, but the title of that Bieber album is a bit unfortunate under the current circumstances.

Kara said...

"Kardash"

Did you make that up? If you did better trademark it while you can.

DJP said...

I made up this use of it, Kara.

But I had seen a Tweet from Weird Al Yankovic saying that "Kardash" is a new unit of time measurement equivalent to 72 days. Pretty funny, but it sounds more like a verb to me.

(c:

Wendy said...

I'm sitting here in the doctors office, waiting to be seen for a cat bite (infection, nerve damage, the whole nine) because I found a stray last night.... And yet that troll bridge graphic had me laughing out loud.
And I've decided to keep the stray now that we've calmed down.

What is this strange hold they have over us???

DJP said...

Yeah, Wendy, I have no idea what you're talking about...


...says the former cat-hater with five cats.

threegirldad said...

"I-i-i-i'm dreaming of a ... Justin Bieber-less Christma-a-a-a-s..."

Three cheers for Dr. Hamilton!

Three hundred raspberries for that Safeway manager!

The more I think about the guest post at Kevin DeYoung's blog, and several of the ensuing comments, the more convinced I am that the discussion is seriously in need of a dose of 1 Peter 4:8. And since someone is bound to ask, I was just shy of 28 when I got married, and had heard it all--multiple times--by that point. "So, there's that."

Re: "Kardash / Kardashian" as a unit of measure.

DJP said...

Oh, that's hysterical.

DJP said...

In a sad way.

Sir Brass said...

Dan, you're pretty dead on with Wilson.

I've been growing more and more disturbed about his brand of FVism (and let's admit it, he's the least radical of the bunch) as its shown its fruits more and more.

The sad thing is that it's a corruption of biblical covenantal theology.

Leaving aside the dispy/cov dispute (that's me officially saying, "I ain't going there!"), I'd be interested in you comparing the covenant theology of someone like Wilson, and what Greg Nichols presents in his "Covenant Theology: A Reformed and Baptistic Perspective on God's Covenants" (copywrite 2011, Solid Ground). One side is consistent on the side of scripture.... and then there's the FV side which tries to be consistent with its traditions and morphs its theology and exegesis to fit.

Dorothy said...

About Kevin DeYoung's post...I'm single, in my mid-30's and the only thing on the list that would bother me is "Why don't you move or go to another church?" and only that if it came from someone in my church...and then I'd probably get over it (they're not really trying to get rid of me or say that my contribution to the church is so meaningless that I can pick up and leave to find a man, right?). For the rest, I tend to believe that they have my best interests at heart and appreciate them caring. In fact, the only comments that bother me at all are the "maybe if you changed your hair or the way you dress" type of comments.

And...you can never go wrong with cat pictures. They make me laugh.

Paula Bolyard said...

116.08 Kardashians! No wonder that evil woman at the thrift store asked for my Golden Buckeye (senior discount) card!

Couple-a things...

First, about things you shouldn't say, it appears that Herman Cains poll numbers and fundraising have risen since reports of (alleged) sexual harassment have emerged. I can't help but wonder if some of that is a reaction to the extreme lengths people (men-people, to be more precise) must go to in order to to be labeled a sexual harasser.

Many companies require employees to sit through yearly training classes on appropriate behavior and are terrified to so much as open a door for a woman for fear of a sexual harassment charge, let alone telling a woman she looks nice or daring to compliment her shoes!

It's a mine field out there and I suspect this "scandal" (for lack of a better word) has tapped into some of that frustration.

On the subject for forcing nurses to perform abortions, at the root of this issue is tax dollars. Hospitals, schools, and thousands of other organizations and institutions have put themselves under government control by accepting handouts from the government. The minute you do that,they begin calling some of the shots.

I think the American church ought to begin discussing ways to disentangle from the Administrative State because I sure don't see it going in a better direction down the line.

Mizz Harpy said...

@DJP, don't worry about walking on egg shells around singles for fear of making any offending comment. I'm sure I've received some of these but I knew the person well enough to know they were being kind. I also think singles say/do things that married couples with kids find offensive ex. THE LOOK we give parents with misbehaving kids.

I loved the nerdy pumpkin pi.

DJP said...

Wow, and I just thought: what if an old white married person is trying to talk to someone who's single and black?

DISASTER!

threegirldad said...

Dan,

That last comment of yours was cryptic. Please clarify. ;-)

DJP said...

Yep! That's me! Alllways cryptic!

Herding Grasshoppers said...

The Grasshopper boys thank you for some early morning laughs - they especially like the cat pics, though your cat wouldn't fit in a mailbox like that ;D

Pierre Saikaley said...

"the Millennium ain't here yet"

1.(with pinkie finger raised)
Oh, you're one of those. Don't you know it isn't Reformed to be one of those.

2.Are there plans for an actual commentary on Proverbs?

3. Stormtrooper car... My wife tells me it would've been a deal breaker in our dating days. :-D

Good weekend.

DJP said...

No plans, with me working a fulltime secular job, helping with homeschooling, and writing for two blogs.

Dreams, yes. But I'm hardly the best for it.

Let's see if anyone buys the one that's out there.

(c:

Aaron said...

Personally, I found Kevin DeYoung's post to be prima facie evidence of why those women are still single. But that's just me.

How come the lesson here is that Safeway overreacted and not, maybe you should pay for your food before you ate it?

Kirby said...

the ear bud knot diagram is hilarious beyond measure.

Moon said...

As for the Keving De Young post...those comments aren't all that bad because people ask them with the best of intentions. The worst comments are the ones people make when a single gal's sister is getting married...when I got engaged the first question after how did he propose, was and how does your sister feel? (because I'm the youngest)...seriously everybody either asked me or her,
1. If she had a boyfriend.
2. When she was planning on getting married
3. Awww your sister beat you to it (!!!! OK like it's some sort of competition)
4. It's ok you'll find a boyfriend soon...
5. How old are you again? Are you seeing anyone?

Terrible!
These were questions from aunts, uncles, friends..

Susan said...

Ouch, Rita..."How does your sister feel"!? (To put it a bit nicely, that's a question for your sister, but even then it's not the most thoughtful question to ask. To put it more bluntly...forget it, I'll plead the 5th. Family is family, after all.) :(

tobekiwi said...

Those pumpkin carvings were cool, not nerdy. But then maybe only a nerd would think that (guilty).

Is the cat in the mailbox smiling? I was rolling, "dog was right that was fun" :o)

About that yucky transplant, a young very healthy high schooler from our church battled that after taking antibiotics for another condition. Seems like the antibiotics killed off all the "good" bacteria in his, er, gut leaving the c-diff to wreak absolute havoc for several months. He lost over 30 pounds, missed a lot of school, couldn't play much football his senior year and they thought they may have to do that procedure on him to get the "good" bacteria back into his, ah, system. Thankfully they did not. He had a rough time and did have to have surgery because of the damage done. Praise the Lord, he recovered fully.

So much more to check out yet, sure it's all good- thanks for another H&T! Have a blessed Lord's Day everyone!