Go Read the Paper

I wrote a big long post about the lack of Mexican food in England, and then I realized it wasn’t good Sunday material, so I had to save it as a draft.

Dang it.

Now I can’t think well enough to write a second long post, because Marv is behind me yelling, “Can I rub your snout?” over and over.

I paid for this bird. That’s the bizarre thing. I wasn’t forced to accept it as part of a plea bargain. I took perfectly good money and exchanged it for this creature.

Today, my sister and I will be going to Rich Wilkerson’s church. I hope it will be like last week’s visit. I physically felt the presence of God there. That’s a hard experience to turn down. I think any atheist or agnostic who claims to be open-minded should visit a church like this one. If you can experience this and continue to claim there is no god, you are beyond reach. I believe most people who claim there is no evidence of the existence of God are very determined not to look for it. You can find it if you try.

Intermission

I have a database problem which is interfering with comments. Working on it.

Who Needs Tanks When You Have Cheap Sedans?

What on earth is going on in China?

A while back I ordered a Chinese car charger for my cell phone. I don’t recall the price, but it was something like one cent. Seriously. And the shipping was very cheap. The product arrived, and it worked great. I can’t figure out how the seller managed to make the sale worth his time.

Earlier this week, I ordered a nice green laser sight from Hong Kong. Total cost, with rechargeable battery and mount: about $40. That’s less than half the cost of lasers American companies sell. Is the quality as high? People who have bought the laser seem to love it; that’s all I can tell you.

Today I remembered that I needed a charger for the laser battery. I found one. Cost? Two dollars. With FOUR batteries included. I’m not kidding. For a total of about ten bucks, they’re shipping it from Hong Kong.

I’ve used Chinese batteries in my cameras, with Chinese chargers. They work great. They’re probably made in the same factories where my Canon batteries were made.

Here’s something that makes Chinese bargains even more interesting. They’re going to sell cars here. I know that. I don’t have to check; it’s obvious. Common sense.

Okay, I’ll check.

Yes, it’s happening. As of 2007, a company called Chery was planning to open up shop here. I assume they’ve done it already.

Right now, Chinese cars are junk. On the other hand, they cost under ten grand. That covers a multitude of sins. Industry people say it will be five or ten years before they improve. Yeah, right. The same nation that has quickly improved its tools and other industrial products dramatically will need five years to do the same thing with cars. Do you believe that? Even if it’s true, five years isn’t a long time.

And here we are, seriously entertaining the notion of taking money away from responsible Americans and giving it to relatively unskilled auto workers who bring home about $72 per hour, working so slowly their effective rate is actually about $144. Brilliant. We are supposed to pump more money into three failed companies, with no expectation that they will stop paying their workers five times the market value of their labor. Please explain. Do you make $144 per hour? Some of you do, but many of you don’t. I’m sure many of you make about a tenth of that. How do you feel about paying taxes on your market-value wage, so someone else can earn several times as much, doing something of equal or lesser value? Would you lend money to your neighbor to keep his convenience store afloat, if he insisted on paying the clerk four hundred dollars a day?

The Japanese used to make bad cars. They improved. The Koreans make good cars. The Chinese are going to make good cars, too, and they’re going to be dirt cheap. And it’s going to happen right when our bloated car industry is supposed to start paying off on our giant welfare check. Am I the only person who sees a problem here? Would you invest in a failing Burger King, if you knew the Chinese were going to open a similar restaurant next door, charging half as much for the same food?

No.

The UAW needs to get a grip. Their wages are going to plummet, with or without a bailout. That is a certainty. They can’t compete with the Japanese, and when the Chinese show up in force, they’re going to be annihilated. They should be working with the carmakers to increase efficiency and get wages in line with revenues. The free punch and pie are things of the past. The fifty-year-long frat party is OVER.

I still tend to think America is washed up, as the world’s preeminent nation. We aborted our babies, we sanctioned every type of sexual sin, we took drugs, we turned VD into an honor, we accorded evil religions the same dignity as Judaism and Christianity, and we helped Israel commit suicide. We quit taking God seriously, and we forgot where all that lovely money came from. I think we’re all done. Get used to second-tier status.

We can’t seem to absorb the truth. Americans are not superior. We are not the master race. We are not invincible. Without God’s protection, poverty and socialism can happen here. Our enemies can win. We can be invaded and conquered. The UAW thinks it’s 1950, and we’re still in a postwar boom, with the highest standard of living in the world. In all likelihood, we are in a contraction that will not end until life here is about like it is in Italy. We are living under a self-inflicted curse, just like the Jews who were carried off to Babylon.

I am not an economist, but it sure seems like bad times are here to stay. A gigantic amount of American wealth–trillions of dollars–has ceased to exist. People are going to spend less. They’re going to have less to invest in a recovery. Even companies that are managed well are going to suffer, because consumers will have less money to pay for their products and services. Companies that sell to other companies will see lower demand, because their customers will go out of business or experience dramatic slowdowns. Someone tell me…doesn’t this guarantee deflation? It’s already happening to oil and other commodities.

In my mind, it spells “depression.” Demand for everything is down. Capital is gone. Most Americans have almost no savings; no one seems to be talking about this. Many Americans have negative net worths. When waves of layoffs start–and they will–the millions of people who have low net worths and heavy debt loads, and who rent their homes, will spill into the street in a flash. Am I wrong? If you live from hand to mouth, and you have a $15,000 Visa balance, and you have no equity in your home, where are you supposed to live the month after you get fired? Don’t buy a car now; it would be like buying a house in 2007. Six months from now, you may be able to take your pick, from hundreds of low-mileage repos.

Wow, a question just occurred to me. Tens of millions of Americans have no assets and too much debt. If layoffs start, won’t it cause a second credit crisis as bad as the one caused by our socialist mortgage mess? The same banks that are now eating bad mortgages will have to eat credit card balances. All I can say is, thank God for the FDIC.

Not everyone agrees with me. Supposedly, evangelist Perry Stone thinks we can turn it around. He knows more than I do. I hope he’s right. I trust him more than the “experts” on cable TV. Here’s a question I asked my dad the other day. How many of them are now saying, “This is exactly what I predicted!”? Very damn few. This crash cut their legs out from under them. And the eternal pessimists don’t count; they forecast disaster regardless of the circumstances. Very few of these geniuses saw this coming. They are utterly clueless. False prophets. If you watch the financial channels, you should know this already. When the market is strong for a week, they talk about the wonderful boom which is going to last for years. When it falls for a week, they talk about the bear market that has just begun. I’m not kidding. I’ve watched these people for years. Here’s something to remember. A lot of these characters are not great investors. Many of them handle other people’s money, which means they get paid whether or not their predictions come true.

I’m checking out my theories, and it looks like some gurus are already voicing these concerns.

I know this: it’s always the right time to turn back to God. We shut off the valve that supplied our prosperity. Every individual can reopen it with respect to himself.

Where is my Honorary Doctorate?

I keep inhaling psalms. I finally got past 37, which was a horror to memorize. Since then, luckily, I have been drawn to shorter psalms. This morning, I had to make a list so that when I went through my memorized psalms to firm them up, I would not forget any. I think this is complete: 1, 2, 3, 4, 23, 34, 37, 63, 101. Number 15 will be under control tomorrow.

This stuff works. Lessons from the psalms keep popping into my head during the day.

Psalm 15 is a tough one to swallow. Apparently, in order to be acceptable to God, you have to satisfy these conditions: “He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.” Oh, man. What is there left for me to write about? I can’t backbite and reproach? There goes my hobby. I may sell my keyboard.

I came across this today, in Psalm 41:

“Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.

The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.

The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.

Non-Christians talk a lot about karma. They say you suffer for your bad deeds, and that you are eventually rewarded for your good deeds. Some people say this proves Jesus and Buddha are interchangeable, because it sounds sort of like what Jesus said. They’re a hundred percent wrong. This is not the way Christianity works. We hope to be rewarded for our good deeds, but we beg–and expect–to be spared punishment for our bad deeds. In fact, Jesus bore a great deal of our punishment. But to a great extent, we do reap what we sow. More and more, I realize that you can’t expect good things to happen to you, unless you, yourself, do good things. And the good things you do should be similar in nature to the good things you want done for you. Many ministers say these things, and I think they’re right.

Jews apparently believe this, too. I was talking to Aaron about it. They believe you apply the principle in prayer. Instead of just asking for things, you search your heart and your memory, to see if you have anything of which to repent. You look to your own history and heart to see if you have brought misfortune on yourself. And if you want a certain type of blessing, you try to give it to others. For example, if you need healing, you might make a gift to a charity that provides medical services.

If you think about it, this must explain the Golden Rule. If you do unto others as you would have them do unto you, presumably, you are sowing good seed. You are laying the groundwork for God to treat you well. If you show mercy, you get it. If you show generosity, you will receive it. Generally, I mean. No Christian gets through life without some mistreatment.

Before Jesus, the Jews were already saying, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” I believe some modern Jews say this is the same as the Golden Rule, which says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” But is it? Under the first rule, it’s wrong to harm people. The second obligates you to help people, proactively. It’s a greater requirement. In Luke 10, The priest who passed by on the other side (supposedly to avoid becoming ceremonially unclean) satisfied the first rule, but not the second, which the Good Samaritan obeyed.

According to Luke 10, the Jews didn’t stop at the first rule; they also said we were to love our neighbors as ourselves. This combines the two rules. Ordinarily, you don’t want to harm yourself, and you also want to help yourself.

The above lines from Psalm 41 are consistent with this principle. I would say they amount to a promise, and you can find the same promise expressed differently elsewhere in both testaments.

I am thinking about this a lot these days. I am getting pretty old, and I have not done much for humanity. And I have done stupid things, which I thought were just, which probably invited problems into my life.

I think we are supposed to be like tubes through which God pumps his blessings into the world. After all, the Bible calls him “the many-breasted God.” Maybe we all need to make a more conscious effort to be empathetic.

Last night, it occurred to me that the church was losing opportunities by failing to be empathetic. For example, we have terrible problems with PETA these days. These people have gone completely nuts, persecuting and even injuring human beings because of the way we treat animals. The Bible tells us to be kind to animals, yet we abuse them very badly on our farms, and the church doesn’t say a word about it. PETA, with its extremism and links to anti-Christian leftism, is probably our punishment. We opened the door, by ignoring the need. And we’re headed in the same direction, with the Nigerian “child witch” nonsense. The church caused the problem, the church is not fixing it, and the world is starting to notice the little abandoned children who wander around in the open, looking for food in ditches.

I don’t know how I ended up here; I only intended to say how happy I was that the memorization was going well.

Time to Put Salt on the Leeches

What a weird time we live in. I went back to college as an adult; it wasn’t all that long ago. Nonetheless, at that time, you had to be a pretty weird character to own a laser, other than the tiny ones found in CD and laserdisc players. Now you can buy a wide variety of the crazy things, for cheap. And you’re not limited to red ruby lasers, either.

I just picked up a laser for the M1 carbine I am determined to buy. It’s green, and it’s powerful. I paid about $30. I could have gone with a fancy-shmancy $300 job from a big-name company, but I wanted to see what a $30 laser was like. It has windage and elevation adjustments, and the battery is rechargeable. It might be okay. If not, it’s a fun toy to have.

Naturally, it’s Chinese. It’s sort of odd; the Chinese are our enemies, yet they supply us with a lot of great gun-related hardware, which we will use to slaughter them if we are ever invaded. And of course, they send us all those tasty melamine snacks with lead icing.

Although I am not naive enough to think the Chinese are not dangerous, it’s wonderful to see them learning about capitalism. They have lived in squalor ever since China has existed; I am told that this is the reason they like communism. It stinks, but it’s better than anything they had under their emperors. They’re getting a taste of prosperity now, and where capitalism goes, freedom follows. You can’t have a free market in a stable totalitarian state. At least I don’t think you can. If the government runs everything, they stick their noses into every trade, and business goes to hell.

Maybe increased freedom will lead to a more powerful church. On the other hand, many people react to prosperity by saying, “Never mind, ‘God.’ I can handle my own problems just fine.”

Speaking of heavy-handed government, Kim du Toit and I are on the same page RE the Big Three bailout. Like he says, the dire forecasts are wrong. Probably. Spoiled execs and hack union bosses with no marketable skills tell us millions of jobs will be lost. No, they won’t. They’ll just be moved to companies that aren’t run by incompetents or bled dry by socialist unions. We will still need cars. Auto workers will still need jobs. Other people in the industry will still need jobs. They’ll get them. Those jobs will be provided by a big Three deloused and purged by bankruptcy proceedings, or they’ll be provided by whoever buys their assets.

Do we really think American car production will cease instantly? Do we seriously believe foreign companies will immediately take up the slack, in plants on their own soil? I find those notions hard to swallow. I find it hard to believe that foreign companies could ramp up production that quickly. I’m sure their factories already work 24-hour schedules. Isn’t it more likely that they (or American investors) will look to the idle workers, factories, and suppliers that are already here? If we’re going to shovel out $25 billion, or whatever the figure is, why not shovel it out to new companies that will do things right? Let’s give them loans and tax credits and give the UAW the big kiss-off. Unions were never supposed to guarantee professional wages for laborers. They were supposed to prevent true oppression. The UAW is like a tick swollen up to the size of your fist, and it needs to go. If the Big Three go bankrupt, the idiotic contracts they negotiated with the UAW will vanish instantly. Even Benny Hinn can’t manage a healing that dramatic.

It’s not just okay for the Big Three to be abandoned. It’s something we need to do for America. You can’t pay relatively unskilled laborers $140,000 a year to do their simple jobs badly. Not in a capitalist system. I can’t believe we’re even considering perpetuating it. A bailout will teach bad management and incredibly spoiled workers that their abominable practices are just fine, and that there is no need to change. We bailed out Chrysler, and look at the good it did. There was no reform. Here they are with their hands out again. Oh yeah, that worked.

You don’t give a dog biscuits for crapping in the house.

I thought the bailout was guaranteed, but apparently, Bush will be in office long enough to force these people into bankruptcy. Obama and his band of Bolsheviks won’t be running the country soon enough to force this garbage down our throats. That’s what I hear. I hope it’s true. It would be fantastic to see these companies dewormed, at last. Think how great it would be to see America make good cars again, profitably, using workers who actually have a future. As for union bosses and superfluous management people who will be trimmed out of the system, they can always get student loans and learn how to do something useful. You, too, can learn to drive the big rigs.

Either we’re capitalists, or we’re not. If we’re capitalists, then we do not use tax money to prop up utterly corrupt businesses. And the bigger a business is, the more harmful a bailout is.

People in the industry will suffer during the restructuring. That’s bad. But it’s exactly what is supposed to happen when people in a capitalist system insist on being irresponsible. If you’re getting $72 per hour, based on eight hours when you actually work four, doing minimally skilled labor, how can you expect it to last forever? How can you fail to set money aside for your future? You have only yourself to blame. You have to learn from this. You have to change.

The answer is to grit your teeth, tighten your belt, endure the lean times, and be part of the reform process. In the end, car people will have secure jobs with realistic wages and safe pensions.

Many law school graduates earn $20 per hour, even when times are good. These are generally people with big loans to pay, and they’ve spent seven years in college. How can anyone have the sand to claim a guy who turns the same bolt three hundred times a day is worth seven times as much?

I hate to see anyone lose a job, but you reap what you sow, and the unions and for decades, the union and the car execs have sown and fertilized the seeds of their own destruction. It’s wrong to help them, when we allow responsible, hard-working individuals to go bankrupt every day. It’s wrong, and it will only bring more misery the next time they want a bailout. The Chrysler mess led to this. What kind of financial holocaust will this much-bigger bailout lead to?

These loafers and parasites tell us the Big Three are too big to fail. They’re wrong. It’s America that’s too big to fail. And a Big Three bailout will help destroy her.

Soon We’ll be Lucky if We’re Allowed to Own Rape Whistles

I hit the gun range today and had a lot of fun. I’m pretty sure I spotted a Jewish person. That gave me hope for his race.

I shot the Romak III badly, although not as badly as I shot it before the trigger replacement. The new pull is very light, but it’s also extremely long, and I think that messes me up.

At least it cycled.

I tried the hint about focusing on the reticle markings instead of the target. It made no difference with the Romak, but it may have helped with the K31, which I shot well. Funny thing; focusing on the reticle somehow makes you feel like the rear part of the scope is about to poke you in the eye. It’s unnerving.

I went to two gun stores to ask about Auto-Ordnance M1 carbines, but they were no help. The guy at Bass Pro had no idea what an M1 carbine was. I think the Miami Bass Pro is kind of a farce. When I went in today, I noticed two things. No pistols, and no defensive long guns. I am not completely sure about the long guns, but I’m 95% sure. I think this is the biggest pansy Pro Bass store in the US. They need to shape up. At least they sell ammunition for pistols.

I found a high-powered green laser on Ebay, cheap. That will be a fun toy, IF I can find the gun.

No target photos to post. My phone came back to life after its visit to Maytag World, but it’s only firing on three cylinders, so I can’t take pictures.

Lots of people at the range. People know our socialist, anti-gun President-Elect and his goons are going to come for our guns if they can, so they’re going nuts on gun buys and range time. Very sad. Where was the fear back in October, when it could have saved America from this horrible mistake?

I’m thinking it might be fun to get a better stock for the K31. The one that came with it is crap; no two ways about it. The grip is too thick. It’s heavy. And the butt has points on it that turn my shoulder into hamburger.

I still haven’t gotten it to shoot to the POA.

Great day. Enjoy your guns while you can; I am extremely conscious of the fact that in five or ten years, I may have no guns and no place to shoot them. In anticipation of leftist fascism, I already treasure the memory of the America that was.

Help

I must visit the range, but before I go, I present a request from reader R:

My niece’s grandson was born 5 weeks prematurely with breathing difficulties he is overcoming, but also a worse diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease. Please pray they can help him and for comfort to his parents and grandparents.

Hi-Tech for WWII Plinker

I am enjoying a tall glass of Red Rose tea, flavored with a magnificent Persian lime I grew myself. Don’t let anybody tell you store limes are as good as yard limes. Store limes are dry, and they’re not ripe.

I just checked Drudge. Apparently, the Obamas are starting a workout plan. Even though The Bums Won (to contradict the big Lebowski), they need to remember something. George Bush is a fitness nut who could mash pencil-necked B. Hussein like a pimple. Our President can beat up your President-Elect. I say that with all warmth and graciousfulness. And of course, hope.

This day is beginning well. For one thing, it was 53 degrees this morning. It’s funny how your attitude toward cool weather changes when you start working with tools and taking care of your yard. Sweat and the sun become your enemies. Perhaps the good Lord is preparing me emotionally for a move north, which I hope to make eventually. Yes, I will need help, adjusting to those frigid below-75 days I’ll have to endure in May, halfway up the state.

I think I’m going to go through with my M1 carbine plan. It’s an interesting experiment, and it may turn out to be a good home defense strategy, and it’s just plain fun. I’ll tell everyone how it works out. I’m also looking at M96 Mausers and M39 Finnish Mosins. Not sure why every gun name begins with “M.” I’d like to find an unissued Mosin, but I’m not sure where they come from or what the deal is. Are they really pre-WWII guns that somehow ended up in boxes, unopened, or are they just old guns with new stocks? I guess every M39 is old, in a way, because they’re remanufactured. But you know what I mean.

I’m going to slap a front grip on the M1, with a laser and light, just to see if it’s any good. I wonder how much the accuracy will suffer. I don’t think it will matter, because I plan to learn to shoot this thing without the sights.

A lot of people think you have to use sights to shoot, but that isn’t true. Sure, if you want pinpoint accuracy, sights matter. But when I was a kid, I used to shoot BB guns and air guns all the time without sights, and I had no problem hitting what I aimed at. And my grandfather once shot a rifled slug from the hip and took out a grouse in a distant tree; my dad saw it, and he still talks about it.

There is a famous video of a police officer being gunned down by a drunk veteran with an M1 carbine. If you watch it, you’ll notice the drunk did not use the sights. Yet he had no problem putting round after round exactly where he wanted. His shot placement was flawless. If he had used the sights, the officer might have had the time to kill him. To belabor the point, choosing not to use the sights made him more lethal, not less.

Navy SEALS practice shooting without sights. I don’t know what better recommendation you could want. Read Richard Marcinko’s book.

Besides…laser.

I don’t know anything about laser sights. I’m reading up. Evidently, you can get a very powerful green laser now for $43. I don’t understand much of the technical stuff, which is sad, because I took a semester of advanced optics in college, and I built temperature and current controllers for C02 lasers. I remember terms like “beam waist,” but that’s about it.

Licensed to Cruffle

Here is horrible news. I am about to begin cruffling. The BATF pestered me to fix my application, so I sent a check, and the paper arrived today.

This is bad. There are so many things I want, which I didn’t get because of the hassle of picking them up from a dealer.

I can get an M1 carbine. I can get another K31. An M1 Garand. An M39. An M96. A Sherman tank. My own aircraft carrier.

I think that’s about it.

One thing is for sure. I won’t be ordering anything by cell phone. That is because I have the cleanest cell phone in Miami. This is because I just repeated my old trick: putting the cell phone through the washing machine.

Some people buy new cell phones when they get tired of their old ones. Some people wait until new features come out. For me, the trigger is soap suds coming out of the keypad.

I can’t believe I did this again. I do it every two years.

It’s not that big a deal. I recently realized I needed PDA capabilities. I can’t keep track of when I fertilized what. Or when I should clean the dust out of my room. I have lots of stuff like that, getting on my nerves. The more organized my life becomes, the less I know when I’m supposed to do things.

The old phone might work when it dries out.

I wish I had an interest in Eastern bloc pistols, because there are a whole bunch of them that are C&R eligible.

Hopefully you’ll see me soon on the news, posing with my kitchen table “home arsenal.”

M1 Carbine Question

Here’s a question. How well does an M1 carbine work when you shoot it with the stock folded?

I am considering getting one of these for home defense. It seems like a nice option. You fold it, put a big magazine full of carefully chosen rounds in it, attach a light, and keep it by the bed. You put electronic ear muffs next to it. When the bad person arrives, you put on the muffs, grab the gun, and get ready. If you end up in the same room with him, you turn on the light and shoot from the hip until he is no longer a threat. The compact size of the gun makes it easy to handle indoors. The flash and noise aren’t as bad as bigger guns, and you have your earmuffs. The added barrel length makes it easier to aim effectively than a pistol. The low recoil helps you stay on target. And you can have up to 30 rounds on tap without a magazine change.

But the scenario is less rosy if you can’t shoot with the stock folded. The gun becomes nearly as awkward as a full size rifle.

I have pistols for defense, but they’re inferior to long guns. They’re harder to aim, especially without the sights. It’s easier to shoot yourself accidentally. The capacity is limited. The stopping power is generally not as good as that of a long gun.

I am thinking the best configuration is a folding carbine with a light, laser, and red dot scope. There would be little practical use for the scope, but you might as well have it, just in case. The laser makes it easy to hit bad people in low light. The light illuminates the perp and, hopefully, makes it hard for him to see.

I’m not sure about that last part. It takes a really good light to blind someone in a dark room.

I was reading up on M1 carbines today, and I kept seeing an old bit of nonsense: “the sound of a pump shotgun racking will scare a burglar to death.” Why do people keep repeating this? It’s obviously a myth; common sense should tell you that. Every gun makes a sound when you rack or cock it. Why is a shotgun scarier than a 1911 or .357? Wouldn’t you be scared if you heard someone pull the bolt on a rifle? I sure would. I wouldn’t barge into the room armed with a potato peeler, relieved that the homeowner only had an AK-47. I’d run from a guy who just cocked a .25-caliber pistol. And if your gun is already cocked, you don’t need to work the mechanism to make a scary noise. You can just say, “Excuse me, but I have a big gun.” “Yo tengo Glock.” And you can add this: “I am also on PCP.”

Can we just stop talking about the magical noise a pump shotgun makes? It’s embarrassing to the gun-owning community.

You can buy vertical grips for the front of M1 carbines. It seems like a great idea, although they attach to the barrel. I hate anything that even MIGHT affect accuracy. Of course, I realize you don’t have to be a sniper when your assailant is inside your house. If you’re off by an inch, you will never know it. One company offers a combination light, laser, and grip for $75. The only thing that really scares me is the low price. I can just see myself, hiding in the living room from the Jamaican Mafia, flicking the switch on my laser and wishing I had bought a better one.

I assume you can shoot an M1 carbine with the stock folded, because Universal Arms used to make a version with no buttstock. But I thought I should check.

No Bells Ringing

Yesterday while I was at church, the pastor dealt with a very serious climate-related topic. I refer to the murderous cold snap South Florida is currently enduring. He said we were somehow managing to hold on, even though it was a couple of degrees below seventy.

I got up today at 5:30, and it was 58 degrees here. This was even colder than Sunday. It looks like we’re headed for a solid work week with lows under 60. What a relief. I can get some things done, without filling my shoes with sweat.

I’m all excited because I got to wear pants and shoes. I put on jeans and my Danner work boots before I checked on the fruit trees this morning, and I even got to wear my Carhartt chore coat.

I hate cold weather. I hate ugly cold weather, in particular. Clean, fluffy snow with sunshine is not so bad. Grey snow, brown mud, and clouds…you can have it. My mother always said Kentucky was brown for most of the year. She did not miss that. My father said his outlook improved as soon as he got to Florida, because the sun was brighter.

When I lived in New York (as part of the same Columbia class as the Astroturf Messiah), I did not think much of the weather. It was just as brown as Kentucky, but it was a little colder, and the wind was nasty. On top of this, it somehow managed to rain when the temperature was below 32 degrees. Nobody believes me when I say that, but I remember it, so leave me alone. I also remember feeling the wind coming at me directly from the sides of buildings. I can’t figure that out to this day.

I heard from my college friend Dave last week. He said his friends (mostly liberal and/or gay) could not believe he didn’t remember going to school with Obama. I can’t believe the insane expectations and impressions this unremarkable man generates in the minds of the herd. I guess Dave’s gay and female friends have the hots for B. Hussein, and the straight ones have man-crushes. We went to school with lots of other people who, like Obama, were very ordinary; why is it no one expects us to remember them? Obama was a cipher in college. He had to transfer in order to get in, even with heavy-handed Ivy League affirmative action. It’s not like he had a halo.

I remember Stephanopoulos because he lived across the hall and was very small. He was also at the top of our class; Dave told me that. Obama? No clue. He was invisible.

I told Dave the reason we didn’t remember Obama was probably his self-proclaimed aversion to white people. In his book, he talked about his hostility to Caucasians. He probably stayed in his room, muttering about how he wanted to punch all of us. I don’t know why a person who got so much help from Caucasians would be so angry at them. I wish I had had people of other races, scrambling to pay my bills and make me succeed.

Dave is a gay conservative. He must be real popular.

I am moving Sibelius to my main PC today. Yesterday, while leaving church, I heard a wonderful song in my head, and of course, I forgot it. This morning, it came back. That never happens. I am going to try to capture it.

I can write music via trial and error, but I still don’t understand what I’m doing. For one thing, I don’t know how you look at a piece of music and figure out which chords go with the measures. Maybe it will come to me.

I’m concerned that I may end up writing something somebody else has already written. You never know what is stuck in your unconscious mind.

The odd thing about writing music is that it’s easier for me to come up with tunes than lyrics. Go figure. I write all day; you would think the lyrics would be a cinch.

It would be pretty sweet, if I could get something published. Making money while doing something useful would be a dream come true.

Clarification

Earlier today I wrote about my visit to a local church. It was an astounding experience. I wrote about it because I was shocked at the intensity of God’s presence in this place. But readers seem to have missed the point, thinking I was rejecting the church for putting on a glitzy show, complete with a fog machine.

Here is the message I was trying to convey. This is a wonderful and exceptional church, regardless of the unnecessary bells and whistles. I think only Mike and Og got it. Maybe I was unclear.

I’ve had a couple of divine visitations in my life, and they were more intense than what I experienced today. But those were very special and rare events. They weren’t something I could repeat at will. But now I find that I can get a pretty big piece of the same thing, by doing something as easy as going to church. It looks like I can get a big, healthy dose of the spirit just by taking a drive and sitting in a pew. To me, that is tremendous news. If I have to put up with artificial fog along the way, who cares? There are so many important things a pastor can be wrong about. I can live with questionable fog.

Many Christians believe that God’s power is most accessible where large numbers of faith-filled believers gather. They cite the story of the town where people had no faith, and Jesus could do no great miracles. I had that in mind today, as I felt myself ambushed and surrounded by the Holy Spirit. I realized this might be an especially good time to get off a few prayers about important issues. I think this, all by itself, is a good reason to go back to this church. Praying alone is great, but why pass up an opportunity to pray in the midst of a palpable cloud of God’s presence?

I can’t tell you how affected I was. At first, I hoped to introduce myself after the service and maybe talk to whoever welcomes visitors. But the experience I had was so profound, I hit the road as soon as we were dismissed. I wanted to be alone, as soon as possible, so I could think about what had happened.

There are a lot of reasons for choosing a church. The presence of God is pretty high on the list. I’d go to Taco Bell every Sunday, if God started showing up there. This may not be the church for me, but they are definitely doing something right.

The church is maybe three-fourths black, but the music seemed pretty white. I wish I had some music to offer. On the way home in the car, I started hearing the most beautiful song in my head. I still can’t transcribe music by ear; I hoped I would remember it. And of course, I did not. I need to see if I can get Sibelius working. Maybe I could write something worth publishing.

By the way, here is a story Rich Wilkerson mentioned in his sermon today. A bunch of vicious lesbian activists barged into a Michigan church and emptied buckets of condoms and glitter on the congregation, while shouting obscenities about Jesus. A lesbian couple stormed the pulpit, where they put on a necking display. In Sodom, gangs of gays tried to rape the angels. You have to wonder; given the repressed homosexual hostility which is being vented publicly these days, are we headed for a day when a dangerously large percentage of homosexuals feel that anything they do to the rest of us is justified? As their numbers increase, will we see behavior more like the cruel Sodom kind and less like the cute Queer Eye for the Straight Guy kind?

If you think the abuse of gays is bad now, wait until they start scaring people. Right now, “homophobia” is an unfortunate, silly, melodramatic misnomer. It could conceivably become more accurate.

Two Churches in One Week

On Wednesday, I made my triumphant return to the community of churchgoers. While I was getting ready, I fell down the stairs, opened up my elbow, tore and got blood on a custom-made dress shirt, and nearly sprained a wrist. Today was to be the second visit. My sister’s dog stopped eating, so she refused to go.

If you try to do something to serve God, and nothing goes wrong, you are probably on the wrong track.

Today we were going to visit Rich Wilkerson’s Trinity Church, in Miami Gardens. My sister had been there before, and she said you could feel the presence of God there. When she told me she couldn’t go, I felt like that was the end of it. I hate going to a new church alone. I feel like everyone in the place is staring at me. And I never know what to do while the singing and hand-waving is going on.

I went to church on Wednesday. Missing a Sunday isn’t a big deal.

HOWEVER…

I could not keep myself from going. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I had to go. I found myself getting ready, and then I was in the car, and even though I left late (so I could sneak in after everyone was seated), I arrived on time. I got gas and a car wash so I could weasel my way in, fifteen minutes later.

This place looked like a former nightclub. The ceiling was black, and there were all sorts of lights attached to it. I guess that’s standard in churches where they shoot video and play a lot of electric music. There was a big stage with a back drop that looked like the set of the old Sonny and Cher Show. There were people onstage playing electric instruments, and it was just a little too rock and roll for me, although I don’t think it was actually rock. The performers were excellent; I just didn’t find the music all that appealing. They had weird light-show displays, and there was even a fog machine.

A fog machine?

“Great,” I thought. A waste of time. I was about to be Reverend Iked.

I was wrong about that. After a few minutes, I felt something rise up inside me. It had nothing to do with the music or the light show or the fog. The music didn’t suit me very well, and the light show and fog were annoying. They didn’t cast a spell. If you’ve ever felt God’s presence, you know the sensation I felt. I couldn’t believe it. I was almost dizzy. I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t my own emotions. I wasn’t all that psyched up.

It was more intense than anything I’ve felt in church before. I think you can feel God’s presence in almost any church, to some degree. But this was insistent and powerful. It would not leave me alone.

Some people preach about the presence of God as an abstraction, and they say you’re supposed to experience it “by faith,” or some such thing. That’s probably just blather intended to excuse and explain away the fact that they and the people who follow them have never felt it. You can feel God’s presence physically, just like any other physical sensation. I don’t know the theory, and I don’t care to. I know the actual experience, and so do millions of other people. I wouldn’t want someone who had never tasted strawberries to give me a lecture on the flavor.

Pastor Wilkerson came out after the music ended, and he gave a sermon on things you have to believe in order to be a Christian. You have to believe Jesus led a sinless life. You have to believe Satan exists. I almost typed “Stan.” Yes, you also have to believe Stan exists. Get thee behind me, Stan.

In some ways, the sermon was disappointing. You always want some good scriptural references, but he didn’t give many. Fireworks didn’t go off in my head. I didn’t think, “Boy, this is brilliant stuff.” It was a good, solid sermon, however. He’s an excellent speaker.

It wasn’t the music. It wasn’t the force of the pastor’s personality. Maybe it was the faith of the people. This church is in an area of Miami full of island people. They’re used to the supernatural. Maybe their faith is stronger than ordinary white American faith. I don’t know the explanation, though. All I know is, the sensation of God’s power and presence was overwhelming. This must have been what people felt during the faith-filled gatherings at which the Apostles performed miracles. I wondered why someone didn’t get up, seize the moment, and start healing people.

At the end of the service, I got in the car, and I continued to feel it as I tried to get out of the parking lot. I didn’t stick around and do the visitor shtick. I was confused, and I wanted to think. I’m still somewhat confused.

I am inclined to go back next week. This church isn’t impressive in every respect, but if God is there in such a powerful way, how could you not want to go? I still can’t believe it.

I think they ought to knock off the fog and the light show. They really don’t need them.

I felt like I had to come home and write about this, so other people would know. Things like this don’t happen every day. I think this would be a great place to bring unbelievers. If you can feel this and not believe in God, there is something wrong with you.

They gave me a visitor card, and there was a space for a prayer request. I was in a hurry to fill it out for the ushers. I put in a request for my sister’s dog, Max. I’m thinking he must have gout. Henry the Eighth had gout, and his lifestyle was very similar to Max’s.

Put Fresh Straw in my Stall

Some readers seem to be getting the idea that I am promoting the King James Bible as the ultimate translation. I made it very clear that this is not the case, but a blogger is very lucky if ten percent of his readers read anything beyond the first two sentences of each post. I should bury a bag of cash in a public park and put the location at the bottom of a long blog entry. I’ll bet the cash would still be there a year later.

I don’t speak Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic. I am not a Bible scholar. I have to rely on other people’s judgment regarding translations. I don’t know which one is best.

It’s too bad I didn’t learn these languages when I was young. I was born with a freakish aptitude for foreign language. When I was in high school, I won a statewide French competition. A guy I thought was my friend copied my answers and came in second. The next year, I came in third. I never had the heart to tell my French teacher I didn’t do any homework. Now I’m old and my memory is shot. I might take a crack at Hebrew anyway.

I tried learning Spanish a few years back, and I picked it up in a hurry, but I forgot things just as quickly, so I quit. I don’t know if this was due to age, or if it was related to my sleep problems. I have improved my sleep a lot in the last few months. It looks like dust is the main problem. I found a spray that somehow keeps it out of the air. Clorox makes it. It makes life a lot easier. I was surprised. And I also use 12-hour nasal spray when I have to. I am in the process of getting all the dust out of my bedroom, so I don’t have to rely on weird products. It would be wonderful to have a memory again. This time, I would do something useful with it.

Most people lose the ability to learn languages easily at an early age. I did not. When I went to Israel at the age of 22, I took a bus across Greece, and by the time I made it from Patras to Athens, I was able to read most of the signs, Greek lettering and all. So I have some hope that my abilities will return if I can put a permanent end to my sleep problems. Other people like me have managed to learn languages in old age, so I don’t think I can say I’m washed up.

It amazes me that my parents did so little to develop my potential when I was a kid. They just didn’t know how to raise children. For example, I took my first music lesson at the age of 15, on my own initiative. If I hadn’t piped up without prompting, I would never have learned to play an instrument. I was good at a lot of things, but I had no guidance. I dribbled through life like a ball making its way down the surface of a pinball machine.

How can anyone raise kids with no musical training? It boggles the mind. Music is one of the fundamental pillars of a well-rounded personality. If you don’t take charge of your kids’ education, you might as well keep them in pens and throw slop over the fence once a day. Take the Kaspar Hauser approach.

I don’t blame my parents. My family was cursed, and that’s all there is to it. Without God in our corner, we had no hope of succeeding at anything. When I became an adult, I didn’t do much to fix the damage, so I can’t claim I’m any better than they were.

There is a reason Eastern Kentucky is what it is. Old refrigerators don’t just jump off people’s porches and fall into their yards. Old cars don’t drive themselves into creeks. Barns and fences don’t fall over when they’re maintained. Kids don’t grow up ignorant if their parents are responsible. Appalachia is to bad habits and unproductive values as Holland is to tulips. God fixes things like that, but you have to make yourself available. My family brought its Eastern Kentucky values and beliefs to Florida, just as slaves brought their African values and beliefs to Haiti. We had no right to expect things to go well.

I keep working on my silly trees and plants. In the past, I assumed stuff just grew in yards, without much help. Now I realize you have to be on guard every day and keep working to provide food and drive away pests and disease. Are kids any different? Surely not.

Thank God I have come to realize all this. Thank God my sister realizes it, too. Not everyone has to perish for lack of knowledge.

Today we are going to Rich Wilkerson’s church, up in Miami Gardens. It will be interesting to see what it’s like. I feel like my family is walking out of a dark tunnel and into the light. Sooner or later, I’ll find the right church. And as I continue in faith, I hope to find more peace and satifaction in life, as well as more meaning. I would like to accomplish some good before I leave this world. I am especially interested in turning enemies into allies. Fighting is tiresome, destructive, and wasteful.

I am still worried about the Nigerian “child witch” scandal, which threatens to bring the church to its knees. There are tiny children in Nigeria, walking along the sides of roads, eating grass and leaves to stay alive. And churches started by American missionaries helped put them there. My sister was thinking Rich Wilkerson might know someone with connections, who could do something. Anyway, I haven’t forgotten about it. I hope other people who read about it will look for ways to take action.

I hope people are checking in on Mish Weiss once in a while and offering prayers. Her immune system is gradually rebuilding, after the marrow transplant. On Friday, she had a fever of 105 (Fahrenheit, one assumes), but she is down to around 100 now. Here is her latest post.

It’s a beautiful Sunday. It’s dry and sunny, and the temperature is below 70. Good church weather.

Of course, any weather is good church weather. I hope you, too, will make your way to church before the day is over.

Thirty Days Hath Gynuary…

Reader Ed, a heavy-duty Christian, posted the following comment in response to my post on memorizing Psalm 37, from the King James Bible:

Congratulations! I’d be envious, but that would be sin :).
“but it has a serious purpose.”
I firmly believe that, as you indicate, the Word has power inherent in it.
People think that the more readable a translation, the better it is. Most modern translations are based on original texts that are not the same as the text used for the King James. These texts were assembled about a hundred years ago by two men who were not pious men, to put it mildly. These translations range from Literal to “well that’s what we think they meant”. They even relegate some verses to footnotes as if they shouldn’t be in there (“most ancient manuscripts do not include this verse”. How inspirational! ).
The King James (and Modern King James) are very literal translations of a text (the Majority Text or Textus Receptus) ) that stands the test of time. Over 95% of all scripture fragments are in agreement with it.
My point is that when I want to “nail” a varmint like a demon attacking me or someone else, I want the most accurate weapon I can get my hands on.
Something that maintains the power of the original Word to the best degree possible.
It’s the Word that draws men to God. It’s the Word that repels “harmful spiritual influences”.

I don’t know a whole lot about translations, although I know that some of the worthless and dangerous modern churches have allowed atrocities such as a rewrite performed by a far-left lesbian activist. This woman said something about the Bible being “open,” as if it were a wall anyone could walk up to and spray with graffitti. No, dear, the Bible is not “open.” It was written centuries ago, and that’s the end of it. Shakespeare is not “open.” The Constitution is not “open.” Emily Dickinson’s poems are not “open.” If you want to write your own disgraceful parody and call it a Bible, fine, but we already have a real Bible, and yours will be of no value unless someone needs a heavy object with which to press wrinkles out of a tie.

If I ever practice law again, I’ll tell the judge statutes and rules of procedure are open. “I know the Federal Rules used to say the deadline was 30 calendar days, your honor, but the Rules are ‘open,’ and I changed it to three months. Also, I have amended the calendar to include a new estrogen-centric month called Gynuary.” Oh yeah, that will fly. It is amazing, the things you can believe when you’re a leftist.

I had no idea the KJV was considered superior by people like Ed. The reason I chose it for memorization is that it is simply better English. The art of prose reached its peak hundreds of years ago; with a vocabulary of a few thousand words, our predecessors created works we lack the skill to equal. If you can understand the English of the KJV, you will have a better understanding of modern English, too. And you will use it more skillfully. And who wants to recite dry modern translations? Nobody wants to hear that. “Hey, dudes, let’s, like, not judge other dudes ’cause it’s uncool.” Please. Don’t grime up my ears with that mess.

Ed cites fundamental reasons why the KJV should be accorded more weight than modern translations. I have no reason to doubt what he says. If he’s right, good for me. I thought it had a bunch of errors in it (e.g., “Thou shalt not kill”), but I was willing to memorize it anyway, because of the quality of the language. I figured that if there were problems with things I memorized, I could always learn those while I was memorizing. Then I’d have the KJV on tap, and I would also know where the landmines lay.

I had no primary education. I went to public schools until I was in the seventh grade, so I got the liberalized, watered-down curriculum. Fortunately, I had some native ability, so I picked up English on the streets. That is literally true. Okay, not “on the streets,” but on my own. To this day, even though I knocked the top out of standardized tests and made it to the national spelling bee, I make errors an educated person should not make. Having a pile of beautifully wrought passages in my head at all times is already helping me improve my writing.

Most Americans are illiterate by the standards of a century ago. The things high school graduates wrote back then outshine typical writing produced by modern college graduates. That is no exaggeration. I’ve seen the garbage lawyers write these days, and I’ve seen letters uneducated people wrote long ago. The lawyers lose.

When I want to check up on King James, I go to The Complete Jewish Bible. It seems like a good choice. It was edited by a knowledgeable religious Jew, so it addresses errors introduced due to ignorance of Judaism.

Here’s another interesting thing about the KJV. My parents came from Eastern Kentucky; my dad was from the coal country near West Virginia, and my mother was from a county a little farther west. When I was a kid, my grandparents and most of their siblings were alive and vigorous, and I heard them use a lot of archaic language. Some of it passed down to me, from my parents. Sometimes I see familiar things in the KJV. It reminds me that some of the linguistic idiosyncrasies people outside Appalachia make fun of are actually correct.

I am now working on Psalm 3. It’s short. I need the rest.