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.

Mark the Man Who Memorized Psalm 37, for the End of That Man is Peace

Marv and I have fantastic news. I finally got through Psalm 37. I more or less made it last night, and this morning I sharpened it up. I think by Monday I’ll have it in the bag. I guess it’s time to pick the next psalm. I can’t believe how long this one took. It just refused to be memorized.

The surprising thing about the Psalms is how useful they are. So much of the material is prophetic; I have to wonder if the psalmists even understood what they were saying. Simultaneously, they referred forward in time to the Crucifixion and backward to the first Passover: “He keepeth all his bones; not one of them is broken.” They wrote about the final judgment: “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment.” “For the Lord loveth judgment and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved forever, but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.” “When the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.” “The enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume. Into smoke shall they consume away.” They described the effects of the baptism in the Holy Spirit: “The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.”

A lot of the material spells out God’s promises to the righteous. “The Lord knoweth the way of the upright; their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine, they shall be satisfied.” “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.” “O fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him.” “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them.” One of my mother’s favorite verses: “I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” Another good one, also from Psalm 34: “Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust in him also, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday.”

How about this: “The wicked watcheth the righteous and seeketh to slay him. The Lord will not leave him in his hand nor condemn him when he is judged.”

I may have the punctuation wrong; I haven’t memorized that. They did some funny things back in 1611. I think I got the words right. Thanks to memorization, I now have all this stuff ready when I need it.

Psalm 2 seems to describe the trick God played on his enemies during the Crucifixion. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree; the Lord hath said unto me, thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”

So far I have 1, 2, 4, 23, 34, 37, 63, and 101. That’s only 8, but there is a ton of useful stuff in there.

It’s notable that Jesus quoted the Psalms when he faced challenges. Truthfully, I think a lot of the material in the Psalms is encoded so it will be useless to God’s enemies, but believers will be able to understand and use it at the right time. It sounds like pleasant, flowery poetry, but it has a serious purpose. Reading this stuff, I feel like Indiana Jones. Except this is real, and Indiana Jones is pulp material.

I would like to find out what other Christians think about all this. I think I’m right, but I’ll be sure if I see that other Christians are getting the same ideas.

Hocks and Greens Age Better Than Sophia Loren

It looks like I am going to have to spray my peppers and fruit trees with copper about once a week in order to keep them alive. The fungus down here is as persistent and unreasonable as Bush Derangement Syndrome. I applied copper today, as well as a foliar mineral spray for the citrus. I fertilized the fruit trees, too. Now I have to go buy iron.

What do you eat when you work like a farmer? Farm food, i.e. leftover ham hocks and cornbread! I nuked a hock and a pile of collards, and I followed up with the cornbread, and I buttered the bread, sliced the second half of yesterday’s tomato, added more Vidalia slices, and I was in business. Well, okay, I was in business after I also poured myself an Inca Kola.

Miami has to be the world epicenter of weird foreign soft drink importation.

The things that happen to ham hocks and greens after a day in the fridge are marvelous. All the flavors mingle and intensify. I didn’t even need Texas Pete when I ate the fat off the hock.

I guess I’ll be ready if it turns out a socialist President can’t revive our socialism-ravaged economy with more socialism. I can eat for three days on twenty bucks.

South Carolina Priest Forces Choice

Here’s something to think about.

Sarah Palin was accused of believing Africa was a country. People bought this ridiculous story, even though Governor Palin is a college graduate and an accomplished governor with a high approval rating. Now the story has been proven false; a prankster made it up and presented it to the ever-gullible American media.

Barack H. Obama, on the other hand, DID say there were 57 states. And the press immediately dismissed the error, saying it was caused by fatigue.

How come the press explained the Obama gaffe away, yet assumed the Palin hoax was true?

I apologize for asking such hard questions so early in the morning. I know this will be a tough puzzle to solve. Why would the press assume a Republican was abysmally stupid, while reflexively excusing a Democrat? I just can’t imagine. Maybe if I had a six-figure grant, I could come up with the answer.

I just read another Obama-related story, linked by Drudgebart.com.tv. A South Carolina Catholic priest is refusing to give Communion to Catholics who voted for Obama, who is not only pro-abortion, but in favor of withholding medical care from babies born alive. My response: why did this take so long? I suspect that Catholics have been brainwashed with liberalism for so long, their clergymen just could not force themselves to take a moral stand against a prominent Democrat. Am I wrong? How else can you explain this?

Catholicism opposes divorce. It opposes every known type of fornication (and some things which may not actually be fornication). It preaches unselfishness, sacrifice, and compassion. How can you twist the church’s positions into a platform that supports or even tolerates convenience abortion? I guess once the seminaries filled up with gay men who engaged in sex acts in their spare time, this kind of moral erosion was inevitable. I have been told by Catholics that this kind of thing goes on in seminaries; if I’m wrong, I apologize.

Maybe it’s a crisis of confidence. Catholic churches are losing members and money. These days, no church wants to alienate members, so instead of sticking to their guns, they tell us whatever we want to hear.

I know I’m insane and nothing I say should be taken seriously, but let me tell you the nutty idea I have about churches. I actually believe…no lie…that lay people should get their moral guidance from churches, and NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. If not, they should change the way churches are built. They should have a whole bunch of pulpits and only one single-seat pew. Then on Sundays, a preacher or priest could come and sit in the pew while the congregants yell at him from the pulpits.

This priest is a hero. A real leader. A…a maverick. Yes, I said it. You can’t buy his kind of integrity for all the money in the country of Africa, and to find it in America, you have to scour all 57 states.

Pre-Obama Salad Days, Only Without Salad

This is what every man’s dining table should look like.

You’re looking at a ham hock, collard greens, Vidalia slices, a hothouse tomato, cornbread made with bacon grease, and fried apples.

I should lie and say that’s Red Rose tea, but it’s not. I ran out yesterday. It’s GATORADE.

Still.

Here’s how to enjoy a ham hock. Eat the meat parts as is; they taste fine without help, because they’re ham. Eat the fat with a little hot sauce on it. It’s good without sauce, too, but variety is nice.

It seems like the Roegelein’s bacon scraps have a somewhat more subtle flavor than the strips. The cornbread–made with grease from the scraps I bought–tasted almost refined. I kind of prefer the stronger taste of the strips.

That tomato was surprisingly good, for a store tomato.

If you’re not from the South, you may wonder why I have a disassembled rifle on the table, and why I would eat that odd-looking food.

More

Here’s a closeup of the greens and hock, so you can see the lovely, delicious pig grease.

Dinner Question

I have a poll for you.

This Stuff Tastes Offal Good

I went to Winn-Dixie and got some huge ham hocks and a…wad…of collard greens. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s not a head. It’s not a bunch. It’s a wad. It was so big, I couldn’t put it in a produce bag. So it got grocery germs all over it before I got it out of the store, and I had to wash it pretty well at home.

I have a pot which probably holds six or eight quarts, and I figured I would use that to make the greens and hocks. Wait until you try to jam an entire sliced wad of collard greens into a pot that size. No way. I ended up putting the hocks and some water in it, and I put as much greens in as I could, and I got it boiling. As the greens wilted, they sank, and I managed to get the whole wad in there. I’ve added garlic and pepper. Three hours from now, I expect to be in paradise. I considered adding a piece of habanero. I may still do so. I think a squirt of key lime juice would be good in greens, but it’s too far-out for what I’m doing today.

I just looked at a site about ham hocks. They claim “soul food” comes from the “abhorrent tradition of slavery.” Please. What a crock. How long are we going to be subjected to this myth? Soul food is just Southern food prepared by black people. It comes from the abhorrent tradition of not wasting good food, which was shared by all races. What white Southerner in his right mind would look down on ham hocks? One who wanted to starve, I guess. At least until LBJ saved the world with welfare checks. When my parents were kids, people had to be frugal with food. They slaughtered hogs and let nothing go to waste. They didn’t throw out the hocks and jowls or the other “soul food” ingredients. Why would they? They taste fantastic.

I think it’s safe to say most white Southerners don’t eat fried chitlins (I may be wrong), but they have always eaten sausage skins, which are supposed to be the same thing. I’m assuming chitlins are the small intestine. It’s confusing. No one in my family eats them, so I can’t ask them, and Internet “authorities” differ. Some say it’s the large intestine, which is pretty gross, because the large intestine is where feces come from. If it’s the small intestine, fry it up and I’ll eat it. I’ve eaten piles of them already, stuffed with sausage, so what’s the difference?

Right now, I can get in the car and drive two miles and sit down to a plate of grilled cow chitlins at an Argentinian barbecue joint. Oh, save me from oppression.

It must be the small intestine. A health site says chitlins are dangerous when “contaminated with feces.” All large intestine meat is poo-tainted. The Wikipedia entry on chitlins appears to be full of…wait for it…misinformation.

Anyway, the idea that soul food came from slaves in the South is just plain stupid. The word “chitterling” comes from England. I guess they had cotton plantations back in Chaucer’s day.

My mother used to tell me scary stories about the parts of animals she used to eat. The stuff of nightmares. She said that when my grandmother killed chickens for chicken and dumplings, she would separate out the ovary or whatever it is that makes the eggs and serve it on the side, with half-formed eggs in it. Slaves! My mom and her family must have been slaves!

Goooo downnnn…Mo-ses…

Sorry, I got carried away.

In a few hours, I expect to be dining like a king.

Or a slave.

Life is Hard

For some reason, my visit to Wayne Cochran’s church has me thinking about Southern food. I have half a mind to get myself to Winn-Dixie and obtain some collards and ham hocks.

Oh boy. That would be good. Collards, ham hocks, a tomato, a sweet onion, and cornbread.

I can’t plan my menu with Marv yapping at me. He says, “Can I rub your snout? C’MERE! What are you lookin’ at?” His new word: “Well?”

I’m glad I have inadvertently become a master of cheap cuisine. I guess it was inevitable, because I cook a lot of hereditary peasant food. My grandmothers and great-grandmothers didn’t cook this stuff just because it was good. It was cheap. I like cooking Cuban food, and it’s the same way.

If the economy keeps tanking and we all end up eating low-end food, I’ll never know the difference.

I just saw something on the web, where some person is complaining about hard times. The complaint mentions being forced to make a meal of ham hocks, collard greens, and cornbread.

“Forced”?

Back to Church, After a Two-Decade Hiatus

As mentioned in earlier posts, my sister and I decided to start checking out churches together. First on the list: Wayne Cochran’s Voice for Jesus Church, up in Hialeah. We went last night.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you the devil doesn’t know when you’re trying to get to church. While I was getting dressed to go, I managed to fall down the stairs. I’m talking about a set of wooden stairs with a grand total of three steps. I have a pair of shoes with tacks in the heels that aren’t seated quite right, and I forgot all about them. Sometimes when I put my foot down just right, I slide on the hard tacks until something catches. Last night I put my right foot down at the top of the stairs, and it kept going, and the left one went right after it. And they didn’t stop on the next two steps. I went down and nearly broke my entire rear end.

I somehow managed to hit my left elbow very hard, and a lot of my considerable weight came down on my right thumb. If I had hit a little harder, I would have been injured pretty badly. My thumb was pulled upward, putting a lot of force on my wrist. My right hip hit the top step, and somehow I ended up with a pain in the left side of my back, too. After I got up, I checked my elbow, and sure enough, it was bleeding through my nice custom-made dress shirt. The only dress shirt that was ready for me to wear. I put a bandage on it and reached for a blazer. Somehow or another, dust and crud had accumulated on the one I wanted to take. I couldn’t get enough of it off to make it presentable, so I found another one.

My sister has a 335i, and she insisted I drive so she could have something to eat; her day had apparently been unusually frantic. I am not a fan of BMWs. This thing treated me like a prisoner of war. You have to have a Ph.D. to start it, and it has one of those satellite hookup things that allow BMW employees to yell at you while you drive. But I managed. Naturally, there were accidents on the Palmetto Expressway. Ordinarily, a bad time for this run would be about 45 minutes, but we managed to stretch it to over an hour.

We finally sneaked in and sat down. Wayne Cochran was off somewhere, but an assistant named Jose filled in, and he did a very good job. I was impressed.

One of the big problems with Holy-Spirit-centric Protestant churches is that they go off on worldly tangents and tell people crazy things. I quit going to church largely because I was put off by their seeming insistence that every believer had to be rich and free of problems, and that God was a sort of vending machine. Pay ten dollars in, get a hundred out. Wayne Cochran is affiliated with some of the people who offended me in the past. But Jose taught a very solid message. He said it’s not about asking God for stuff; it’s about seeing yourself as an ambassador of the kingdom, and doing whatever you can to advance God’s agenda in the world. The other things will come as they are needed; you can’t expect anything if you show up in church just to get goodies.

You don’t hear this message often from this kind of church. Or at least you didn’t in the past. Maybe things have changed for the better.

One thing surprised me. A yarmulke. A guy a couple of rows in front of me was wearing it. I didn’t know what to think. Had he been dragged there by a Christian wife or girlfriend or relative? Was he a Jewish believer? I guess he was a member, because when they looked around for new people, they didn’t pay any attention to him.

I don’t know all that much about Jewish converts. It’s my understanding that many of them don’t use the term “Christians” to describe themselves, because they reserve that word for Gentiles. And some of them continue to observe the Jewish laws, seeing themselves as plain old Jews who have found the Messiah. You wouldn’t expect an observant convert to hang out in a Christian church as a member. I suppose there is a lot of confusion in this area. I know this: you wouldn’t have seen a yarmulke in a church back when I was going regularly.

This church is not too far from North Miami Beach, which has a big Jewish presence. I suppose it’s very convenient for converts. Just hop on the Palmetto, and you’re there in ten minutes.

I thought the “ambassador” message was great, because it’s an idea I have had in my head for a long time. I think Christians have been wrong to assume “kingdom of God” refers to heaven. I think you can be part of the kingdom of God right here on earth, and because that kingdom isn’t an earthly government, this makes you a sort of foreigner, and your body a kind of embassy. Property and part of the kingdom, regardless of your current location. I had never heard anyone teach this until last night. If different Christians are getting this idea independently, maybe God is behind it. Some things in the Bible don’t make sense unless you understand the phrase “kingdom of God” to have this meaning.

We were planning to visit again on Sunday, but my sister now wants to take a look at Rich Wilkerson’s church, up in Miami Gardens. She has been there before. She says it’s wonderful.

Here’s one of the weird things about all this. In the past, I used to hope that one day, I’d be able to take my sister to church. But she took me. How about that? I figured she would have to be ethered and carried in on a stretcher.

A nice thing about this type of church is that it draws different kinds of people together. This is especially remarkable in Miami, where racial and ethnic tensions are always very high. The guy who did the teaching was probably Cuban. There were a lot of black people in the crowd. There were the usual run-of-the-mill white people. Of course, there were Hispanics. And then there was the guy in the yarmulke. Nobody talks about it, but spirit-filled churches are very good about uniting people. I’ve never been to a spirit-filled church that didn’t have members from all segments of society. As I looked around, I realized this was something Barack Obama, in all his glory, could never achieve. Leftists try to force unity on us from above, but unity, unlike prosperity, is a thing that has to trickle up. You can’t Astroturf it with busing and affirmative action. Of all the pretend messiahs, Karl Marx is the worst and the least effective. He is the Jimmy Carter of messiahs. No, the Windows Vista.

Wow, I didn’t mean to be that harsh. Is it okay to compare a fellow human being to Windows Vista?

Wayne Cochran is a wonderful speaker. He wasn’t around last night, but they had free CDs of his testimony, and I listened to one. He made it just as he was beginning his ministry. Listening to it, it’s hard to believe he hadn’t been preaching for years. As a Southerner whose parents came out of pretty much the same culture, I felt I understood it particularly well.

I don’t know where I’ll end up, but I am now a churchgoer. That is progress.

Youtubes

I got a comment saying the results I’m getting with the PSL/Romak III are as good as they’re going to get, because the gun is intrinsically inaccurate. I find that hard to believe, not because I have faith in the gun, but because I have little faith in my own ability to shoot well enough to take the gun’s accuracy to its limit.

He said I was focusing on the target instead of the reticle, which is true.

I said I would post a video of a guy shooting the PSL and getting better groups than mine. The video guy uses some sort of Bulgarian crap ammunition; I use 7N1 Russian ammunition, which everyone raves about. Here is the video.

Needless to say, this guy only fired 5 shots after sighting the gun in. If I had stopped after 5 shots, my results would be better than his. I was popping a lot of rounds into a pretty small hole. What does this mean? I do not know.

Here is another video, where he shoots at 600 meters.

It occurred to me tonight that I had completely forgotten to think about where my finger was contacting the trigger, so I am sure I was all over it. I also had a problem with the scope fogging up from time to time, which ruined some shots.

They say these things open up when they get hot. Mine was certainly getting hot when I shot the last bunch of rounds.