Today’s Christopher Walken Dose

Walken, on the Imus flap.

The hook that pulled me into the Imus mess was my buddy Mickey Rourke. As you may know, Mick scrambled his brains trying to be a professional boxer. I remember telling him after his third bout, “Mick, sweetheart. I love what you’re doing. But if you like sleeping on canvas that much, quit boxing and have some sheets made from it.”

Mick is not doing well. His ADD is off the charts, he sometimes calls me “Aunt Susie,” and he claims my ferns laugh at him. But I love the guy, so I let him live in my shed. And when he has trouble sleeping, because the ferns are hurting his feelings, I have Benny or Seymour go out there and tune in a pirate Imus podcast on the laptop. It’s a soft droning sound that doesn’t mean very much, and it knocks Mick out faster than an obvious punch from a fifty-year-old club fighter who lives on food stamps.

That was before the ho thing. Up until then, Imus had been pretty consistent. “Muh muh muh muh weasel muh muh muh muh ranch muh muh pipsqueaks.” You know the sound. It worked so well I had Seymour go out to Mick’s shed and remove the baby monitor. But after? I never heard such shrill whining and pleading. Well, not since I told Tom Cruise he was no longer allowed to eat or mention placenta.

Eric the Half a Rabbi Explains

Top story today: Leah Friedman is doing better. She is awake and reacting to people, and she is regaining control of her body. Thanks, all who said a prayer for her. Don’t stop now.

More news from Israel, forwarded by Aaron: there are indications that Jews in Israel are coming to accept a couple of important truths. American “Christian Zionists”–a phrase that needed to be coined at this point in history–are their friends. And Jews should be armed.

Here’s a quote (when did we stop saying “quotation”?) from the first article, from Yesterday’s Jerusalem Post: “Israel has no better friends in the world than Christian Zionists, Likud opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.”

It turns out evangelist John Hagee has put together something called the Christian Aipac. This is an organization that enables American Christians to funnel money to Israel, and which does not proselytize. I can’t recommend this organization, because I don’t know if it has been investigated the way other pro-Israel charities have, and because there have been a lot of truly disgraceful charities operated by conservative Christians. But it sounds like a fantastic idea. The International Federation of Christians and Jews is safe, so there is no reason you can’t support Israel and help unite Jews and Christians right now.

Regrettably, hidebound throwbacks want to sabotage Christian support for Israel, and with it, God’s promise to the chosen people. Here’s a bit from another article:

“What [Hagee and his allies] mean by ‘support of Israel’ and what we mean by ‘support of Israel’ are two very different things,” Yoffie said. “Their vision of Israel rejects a two-state solution, rejects the possibility of a democratic Israel, and supports the permanent occupation of all Arab lands now controlled by Israel.”

“If implemented, in fact, these views would mean disaster for Israel, and would lead to diplomatic isolation, increased violence, and the loss of Israel’s Jewish majority,” Yoffie said.

That’s leftist rabbi–what a concept–Eric Yoffie, the leader of reformed Judaism in America. In Israel, he’s considered a layman. His brand of Judaism is so far-out, it isn’t recognized there. He’s a gun-grabber and a gay rights crusader, who somehow feels qualified to teach people about the Mosaic laws. I think I’ve said all I need to.

Why call him a throwback, then? Because his views are rooted in the reflexive, self-hating, God-opposing, Christian-fearing Jewish leftism of the 20th century.

His remarks are absurd. What Hagee means by “support for Israel” is 1. sending money, and 2. praying a lot. That’s the bulk of it. American Christians can direct their money toward people in Israel who will do things of which American Christians approve. But we can’t give marching orders. Hagee’s willingness to remove proselytizing from the package reflects the fact that Christian Zionists will work to find ways to support the Jews, even if it means compromising the overall agenda of Christianity.

It appears that what Yoffie wants is to choke off funds to people in Israel with whom he disagrees. He wants to limit foreign support to money aimed at leftist-approved efforts. My bet? American leftists donate about as much money to Israel as they do to Bob Jones University. I’d be willing to bet that Christian donations to Israel far outweigh those from American liberals. Liberals are generally stingy when it comes to charity, in comparison to conservatives. And given the increasing anti-Semitism of the left, I would be shocked to learn that this imbalance does not apply to money for Israel. I wasn’t even aware that charities for poor Jews existed until I came across the IFCJ.

On top of that, leftists never donate money without attaching strings. Money is the fuel of social engineering.

Choking off donations from the God-fearing would probably mean a gigantic reduction in Israel’s foreign support. I just can’t see Moveon stepping in to fill the void. If leftists were supporting Israel to any significant degree, why would Israel need Christian money so badly?

How can a man call himself “rabbi” and support the destruction of Eretz Israel? Is God real or not? Is His promise a joke? Is Yoffie saying, “I believe God made the promise, but I’m smarter than God, so I’m repealing it”? Is he saying, “The promise is a myth”? “By the authority of God’s equal, Eric Yoffie, Jewry is turning the promise down”? I don’t get it.

I’m thrilled to see Netanyahu supporting the acceptance of Christian Zionism. Take the money. Just take it. Manufacture weapons. Guard your borders. Feed your poor. Pay lobbyists all over the world. Take it. Take it. Take it. Once in a while, a Christian may mention Jesus to you. You’ll get over it.

Hagee can be annoying; no doubt about it. So what? Take the damn money. John Hagee is not going to run for mayor of Jerusalem. He is not going to be an MK. Christians do not think of themselves as the real Jews, and we are not going to move to Israel and boot you out. Take the money, grow crops, move Jews to Israel, and don’t worry about John Hagee. He would probably keep sending the money even if you put billboards up all over Israel, calling him a jerk.

The second article is about the way many Jews in Israel are accepting the fact that they need to be armed so they can defend themselves. It turns out the armed Jews who subdued the terrorist morons at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion were trained by an organization called Mishmeret Yesha, founded by Brooklyn-born Jew Israel Dantziger. Mishmeret Yesha trains Jews in rapid response tactics. They ought to put an Amazon tip jar on their website.

Here’s a great QUOTATION:

“It takes at least 10 minutes for the IDF to respond when an infiltration incident occurs. An armed terrorist can kill a whole lot of people in 10 minutes,” says Rabbi Moshe Hager-Lau, a reserve colonel who serves as assistant division commander for reserve forces in Judea and Samaria. He is also head of the Yatir pre-military yeshiva in the southern Hebron Hills, and goes everywhere with an M-16 slung over his shoulder.

Hmm…something about that sounds familiar. I guess the authorities in Israel are just as human as the ones right here. They are somehow unable to materialize instantly at the scenes of crimes, put down their doughnuts (or hamantaschen), and prevent killings.

It looks like they have an uncomfortable relationship with the IDF. They cooperate, but every so often the IDF confiscates weapons. Which is completely justified, because Jews commit so many acts of terrorism.

Sorry, did that sound sarcastic?

I think what Israel really needs is for Eric Yoffie to walk unarmed through the Gaza Strip, helping Palestinian terrorists to understand that Jews are their warm, fuzzy liberal friends. That would help a lot. Sheryl Crow once said the United States should solve its problems by not having enemies. Maybe she’d volunteer to go with him and explain how to do that.

I remember the passage in the book of Joshua, where God told Joshua to go to Jericho and offer the inhabitants cookies and apologize for being Jewish. Oh, wait. Is that not in the Bible? Well, it will be soon. Because as some liberals tell us, the Bible is “an open book.” You can just get out the Liquid Paper, white out the stuff you don’t like, and write things in which are much groovier. I wonder how much Liquid Paper Eric Yoffie’s followers go through in a month.

Christian money for Israel, yes. Guns for Jews, yes. Eretz Israel, yes. Appeasement, no. That sums it up for me.

One Fine Tomato

I decided to slice the one and only reasonably mature non-grape-size tomato I’ve managed to grow. It was a Cherokee chocolate. A bit undersized, but bright red with green on the stem end.

Man, what a tomato. Super sweet, like a piece of fruit. And sour. And full of flavor. The odd thing is, it’s not like any tomato I’ve had. I think if you put it in a BLT, it would be too frou-frou. But out of hand or in a salad, it would be hard to beat. I just wish I could grow more of the damned things. There are a few tiny ones on the plant. They may survive.

This tomato was deep green inside, with red flesh around the bottom and sides. But it was definitely ripe. Not as ripe as I would have liked, but way past the crap I get at the store.

It would be worth it to buy a light and grow tomatoes indoors, if they were all this good.

For a Second I Almost Felt Significant

I can’t believe it. I can now say I’ve known two Pulitzer winners. And I’m not including perennial winner Jonah Goldberg, who had to rent a storage unit to hold his statuettes or whatever it is they give you.

I sort of knew Dave Barry back when I freelanced for The Miami Herald. He knew me well enough to shake my hand and back away slowly when we ran into each other at the elevators. And now my old editor, Gene Weingarten, has won a prize for writing about some fiddle player in the subway. He probably deserved it. He wrote very well when he ran Tropic, the Herald Sunday magazine. Tropic had a lot of good contributors, but I always thought he and Barry were the class of the operation.

Am I jealous? Not at all. Let’s see those losers make Quote of the Day at Kim du Toit’s blog.

I truly suck at name-dropping. I barely know anybody.

Blogger Down

I just got a shocking email.

I have a reader named Leah Friedman. She has a blog. She’s 18, and she lives in Israel. I didn’t know anything but her name and that she was very pretty, until I received this message:

Sorry for the “send all” but we are exhausted. I would like nothing more than to send a personal note to each and everyone of you and will do that as time permits.
Today is a good day, the doctors are encouraged and have put Leah on an as needed ventilator.
She is frustrated and hates the machine, good! She cries but is not in pain.
She can squeeze your hands and will follow you with her eyes. I asked her to wiggle her toes and she moved her legs.
We read to her, sing to her, she has her ipod, and her favorite CD’s. I even told her that I ate her entire stash of chocolate!

It may be weeks before we know how much if any brain damage she has suffered.The doctors said ‘this is not an illness one gets over”
not knowing how long she was not breathing is difficult. One day at a time.

Thank you everyone As I said in my blog post I truly believe it was ya’lls prayers and G-ds grace.

B’Avahav, Mish

I don’t know how I ended up on the email list. I used Google to find her blog, and I located this post. It says she has a heart condition, and evidently something went wrong, and she has been in the hospital since April 3rd.

Do me a favor and say a prayer for her. And maybe you could leave a comment on her blog, so she’ll be able to see it when she feels better.

Call me Drudgebart

Sondra K. says I have been neglecting her, so here is a link to a fine post she put up. I hope it will change your life the way it did mine.

Elisson says he’s dieting! Less red meat and MORE FISH!

All around me, feet of clay.

Oh no! Amanda is dieting too! Has the world gone crazy?

I may be partly responsible for their situations.

Joe Tobacco calls Joe Gandelsman out, challenging his…moderate…ness. I wouldn’t be too angry with Gandelsman. A liberal who calls himself moderate is infinitely preferable to the Moveon nuts who have a policy of calling talk shows, claiming to be “lifelong Republicans,” and then announcing that the medical marijuana industry should be nationalized and the entire Bush family should be sent to a taxidermist.

Cap’n Bob has a personal Charlton Heston anecdote. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Carl From Chicago at Chicagboyz says England is running out of electricity. Seems logical. They ran out of common sense decades ago, so it’s natural that other precious assets are now drying up. Carl says we’re headed the same way. My response: use all the power you can, while it’s still available! This is like coming up on a yellow light. You have to HIT THE GAS.

Henry Gomez at Cuban-American Pundits is pulling the plug. From now on, content you might otherwise have seen at CAP will be found at Babalu. Funny, in Miami, CAP means “Cuban-American Princess.” Anyway, now you know where to find Henry.

Two seemingly incompatible bits of news from Double Tapper: 1. Israel’s gun laws require people who are physically unfit to give up their guns. So if you get old or sick, the government makes things worse by disarming you. 2. The rabbi and off-duty soldier (describes a huge number of Israelis) who killed the Merkaz Harav terrorist were given awards for their heroism. In Israel. Good thing they were both young and healthy, or else a lot more children would be dead.

That’s all I got for now.

Oh, wait. Here’s Christopher Walken, with his take on Chanukkah.

I got an accountant. Shlomo. A Jew. He tried to explain Hanukkah to me once. He’s like, “There were these lamps, and there was a limited supply of oil, but the oil burned for eight days, and it was a miracle, and then the Egyptians made us make bricks, and we had to cut off our foreskins…yada yada yada yada,” “Get to the POINT,” I kept telling him. “Okay, fine, your Christmas story is a little different from ours, but I know sooner or later we get to the part with the tree and the fat guy in the red suit. I mean, we have that much in common. You people aren’t SAVAGES, right? I know you were behind that crucifixion thing, but that was a simple beef over turf. You guys don’t live in huts and run around in jockstraps made from your enemies’ faces, right? So skip to the part where Saint Nick comes down the chimney and gives you a new bike, because I know that’s where we’re headed.”

I never got a straight answer out of that guy, but I cut him some slack, because I haven’t paid taxes since ‘73. Which reminds me, I need to send a ham to my previous accountant’s widow.

Today we are Disarmed

I guess by now all of you know Charlton Heston is gone. What a wonderful man. In a town where people celebrate themselves as rebels while doing exactly what everyone around them does, he stood out as a man driven solely by his own convictions. He married once and only once, he did not divorce, and he never had a scandal. He torpedoed his own career by being openly religious, and by working as a civil rights activist. Defending the only civil right that is in any way controversial. He also marched with Martin Luther King. Funny how no one seems to remember that.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia: “Heston died on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills, California with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, by his side.” I wonder if George Clooney has ever made it 64 weeks with one woman.

Greatness becomes rarer with each passing year. The loss of Charlton Heston makes it still rarer. They ought to bury him with a sidearm, so he could smile down from heaven at his enemies and say, “No, not even THEN.”

I may spend an hour at the gun range tomorrow, just to celebrate his life.

Even a Chicken Needs to Show Respect

Forgot today’s dose of Christopher Walken. I think these things are best presented out of context. One of these days I have to PG the Walken pieces up. Some are over the line.

This chicken was wandering around the compound, and I was sitting on the deck trying to enjoy a Bosco while Benny buried a midget under my poinciana tree, and I kept yelling. “HEY. CHICKEN. DON’T DISRESPECT MY YARD, MY FRIEND. DON’T TAKE US TO THAT PLACE THIS EARLY IN THE DAY, WHILE THE HOLE UNDER THE POINCIANA TREE IS STILL OPEN AND I HAVE YET TO FINISH MY BOSCO.”

And the chicken looks right at me and drops a giant load on my salvia divinorum. Which Mickey Rourke was planning to make into a refreshing salad.

Mick still lives with me. Out of necessity. You want some more Latin? “Dementia pugilistica.” Sounds like one of Caesar’s girlfriends or the name of a gaudy shrub, but it’s actually the sad, sad aftereffect of Mick’s tragic infatuation with the squared circle. He wanders around under the mango trees, in his rollerblades and bikini briefs, feinting and bobbing and occasionally pawing at the cobwebs, to remove them from the foliage. And of course, the cobwebs aren’t really there. Any more than the giant orange hamster named “Morris” that dances in the living room of the caretaker’s shack while Mick hangs from his gravity boots, trying to watch MTV Cribs.

Salvia divinorum is highly hallucinogenic, so it exacerbates Mick’s delusions, but Mick says it’s crunchy and delicious, and I figure, what’s the harm? Mick likes it, and Morris says he enjoys the company. The other day Mick said he was having a tea party for Morris, Abraham Lincoln, a guy in a diver’s suit, and a talking beaver. I don’t know whether they drank the tea or smoked it.

One more:

I am not an Imus fan. I want to admit that up front. If I want to listen to a mean old fart ramble for three hours, I’ll call my Uncle Sid and ask how he feels about childproof caps.

I’m not even sure if Imus talks. Have you ever seen his lips move? I have a theory that Imus went into a coma in about ‘89, and ever since then, the voice has been coming from a speaker in his cowboy hat, attached to a wire. At the other end? Wilford Brimley. And an empty bottle of Robitussin.

Someone help me. I can’t stop.

Anyway, when I realized April was going to be one of the coldest on record, I collected my perennial houseguest Mickey Rourke, and I told him to double up on the Ritalin and get the ’62 De Ville ready, because we were going to Punxsutawney again.

It took a little longer than I thought, because at one point a jamook in a uniform had the stones to ask me to pay a toll.

“Oh, no, my friend,” I told him, as Mick held his head in the door of the De Ville and applied the appropriate amount of pressure, “Christopher Walken does not PAY tolls. He COLLECTS them.” And I shook him down for a fin. Unfortunately he had no cash on him. So I went in the toll booth to see if he had anything to hold as, you know, collateral.

And now I have a very nice Thermos. All metal, baby. Old school. Keeps your coffee hot, and in a pinch it can be used to break an uncooperative jaw.

How Clean is Clean?

Reader MKL has a question. How often to you have to clean the primer pockets on the brass you reload? He says sometimes the crud accumulates until the primers won’t go all the way into the casings.

I Have Company

I wondered what people would think about what I wrote last night. I’m not all that surprised to see positive comments. Blogs are funny; they reach out into the world like the tendrils of a climbing plant, finding like-minded people and putting them in touch with each other.

Let’s see what we have.

“Ever think about Eastern Orthodoxy? It is the Church of the apostles; pretty much the same now as it was then.”

Don’t know much about it. Aren’t some of the guys who look after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Eastern Orthodox? I can tell you this. I could never join a church that requires praying to saints. Not after reading the story of Saul and Samuel. I don’t know if the Eastern Orthodox Church fits that description. Another thing that bothers me about the older churches is that they seem very bound up in rules and internal politics, so you end up with a lot of worshipers who think they can be Tony Soprano all week and then get clean on Sunday. Or, worse, Easter and Christmas. I think faith, a personal relationship with God, and inner renewal via the Holy Spirit get cut out of the picture, so the result is worldliness. I believe that explains the gay “mafia” in the Catholic Church, as well as disturbing radical priests who want to be rock stars.

“Facinating reading this. It seems like there is a tremendous pull being exerted on some very smart, savvy people. I’ve watched you get pulled into the divine orbit over the last year or so. The same thing is happening with vanderleun. Interesting times.”

I don’t know who Vanderleun is, but the thought you express has occurred to me, too. It seems like God has a lot of “sleepers” out there. People who have been less active than they felt they should, who are now gaining strength and trying to shape up and accomplish more. And the curious thing about is that even if it has become more obvious recently, I can tell you that it didn’t take place over the last year or two. Not in my case, anyway. I have been working on this for a long time. The thing that has happened over the last year is an acceleration in the payoff. Maybe something is going on that has been in the works for quite some time.

In addition to spiritual awakenings, I have noticed that an awful lot of the same people seem to be shooting these days. Don’t know what to make of that. Is it my imagination?

Unfortunately if you want to be a Methodist pastor you must mash your brain flat to dull any sense of politically incorrect thought while passing your body through five or six years of the Emory educational experience.

So today finding their so- called “leaders” going with the flotsam lifted by the anti-Israel tide is not surprising to me, but it is the very reason I’m religious but don’t attend services with a congregation regularly

I didn’t know academics were involved. That explains everything. Teachers corrupt our kids. They make up a huge percentage of DNC operatives. They espouse socialism because they’re all union members who work seven hours a day, nine months a year, with near-total job security, plus benefits and pensions. And to top it off, they don’t teach us how to read any more.

Maybe the best reason for homeschooling is to put teachers out of business.

“I think that I’m on the same spiritual path that you’re describing, though I concede that you seem to be a bit further along than me.”

I would not count on that last part.

Paul C, a Catholic, has a different take on rules and ritual:

Interesting comment as to how “Christians” and I quote that on purpose will change doctrine and idealogy and scripture to effectively match a viewpoint they have. I don’t speak as an expert and this may sound arrogant however as a Catholic we have a lot of rules people don’t like as it interferes with all the things you have listed here. Our Church has had many centuries to evolve and reform and with good reason and good effect and I believe it is strong because of the moral authority it brings to faith for all Christians . . .

Our civilization is decadent and decaying, we have lost too much from a moral standpoint, morally bankrupt if you will. I would have hoped that people within my church would not leave the congregation each Sunday and resort back to decadence through out the week it has been a thorn in my side since my father pointed it out. We can sit in church for an hour hear and respond to a wonderful homily and then fight like mad to be the first out of the parking lot.

I think a church can have too few rules and be too loose. On the other hand, when a surfeit of man-made rules comes to supplant faith and supernatural renewal, the kind of behavior you describe is probably inevitable. I think the older churches have blown it by giving up on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is intended to change people from within and “write God’s law on their hearts,” making it easier for them to behave. I was a fairly good person, by modern standards, in my own right. But that isn’t saying much. There were persistent moral flaws I could not beat on my own, and they were not minor, and they frustrated me very badly, and I am positive I am only making progress on them now because God is working inside me.

Here is some good news before I post this. As is often the case, World Vision is having a sale. Sort of. Right now, if you donate money to provide anti-parasite medications to children in need, they’ll get matching funds multiplying your gift by fourteen. That’s a fantastic deal. If you were planning to make a charitable donation this week, I can’t think of a better choice.

Might be Time for You to Change Churches

Here is appalling news. The United Methodist Church “will be considering divestment resolutions and other anti-Israel measures at its General Conference that takes place in Texas April 23-May 2.” And they’ve already done other rotten things, like putting out a children’s book that teaches kids Israel is to blame in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Funny, I thought electing terrorists and shooting an endless rain of rockets at innocent civilians might somehow be contributing to the problem.

I know other denominations claiming to be Christian have demonstrated this kind of hostility and unfairness. I am really ashamed. Of course, many of these churches are no more Christian than an EST seminar.

It seems like you can tell a lot about the validity of a “Christian” church by checking a few things. Acceptance of gay pastors? Bibles rewritten to support a feminist perspective, with no scriptural basis? Endorsement of other faiths, especially Islam? Where you see things like that, you can pretty much assume you’re dealing with a church that has nothing to do with faith or salvation, and which leads people farther away from God. And don’t be surprised if they tell their members Israel is evil. Jesus called the church of his time the synagogue of Satan, and these are the modern-day churches of Satan. Deny that the God of the Bible exists, deny that Jesus is the only path to salvation, deny the clearly defined morality of the Bible, and you have a fetid abomination that prevents people from finding peace and salvation, and from feeling the indescribable pleasure of being in the presence of God.

I don’t know if the UMC fits this description, but a whole lot of churches do. They fool ignorant people who think Jesus and Buddha and maybe Richard Simmons are interchangeable, and that nice people all go to heaven. Or that there is no heaven at all, and that Christianity is just a philosophy. All that stuff is nonsense. Christianity means believing there is a person we call God, and that he is an immortal spirit who rules the universe, and that He gave us one and only one Messiah, also immortal, and that Messiah is Jesus. It means believing a Gentile can only be saved by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus, and that there is an afterlife. And by extension, that Buddha and all the other non-Christian saviors were tragically ignorant and mistaken.

It must be very hard for Jews to figure out which Christians are on their side. The Catholics have always been a problem, and I think to many Jews, they represent Christianity. The general rule is, fundamentalists and charismatics are one hundred percent behind Israel. I used to think “evangelical” was a clue that a church preached the true message of Christianity and supported Israel and the Jews, but at least one church with “evangelical” in the name is attacking the chosen. So I don’t know how strong an indicator “evangelical” is.

It’s funny, but a lot of people want everything about Christianity except its essence. They want to go to church and feel like good people. At the same time, they want to have unlimited sex outside marriage. They want to be materialistic and arrogant and selfish. They want to make up their own commandments. And they don’t want to bum anyone out or seem less cool, by calling sin what it is.

You have to be cool! Cool is the only thing that matters! You have to have lots of sex and listen to immoral music and snort a little coke or smoke a doob once in a while. You have to have the option of killing your children in their mother’s womb, making it a sort of portable abattoir, so the uncomfortable subject of sensation-killing rubber devices doesn’t spoil your super-important fun. You can’t ever say someone else’s sinful behavior bothers you. You can’t even admit sin exists, or that shame is a good thing. No, no. You have to have your tattoos and piercings and vile entertainment, and you’re not allowed to judge anybody’s behavior. Except of course for people who try to please God. The actual, real God. Not the chloroformed, confused version your church talks about. God is fine, as long as you put Him in a box and make Him behave. Come on; you can’t let Him be a buzzkill! After all, He’s not important. He’s just God. And anyone who talks about Satan, angels, or demons is a psycho! The Bible mentions them over and over, but you’re not supposed to actually believe the Bible. It’s just supposed to make you feel good! Like dope!

Look, God is not something you can edit, regardless of what irrational people say. The other day I saw something on the web about a far-left nut claiming the Bible was “an open document.” What? That’s like saying the formula for salt is subject to alteration. There is nothing “open” about a book that was finished almost two thousand years ago. You may translate it differently, if you have sound linguistic arguments. But you can’t just cross out “Jehovah” and write “Gaia” or, worse, “Me” all over the pages. It is what it is, and God is what He is. Salvation, sacrifice, sin, eternal life, hell…these things are realities. If you disagree, that’s swell. But you’re not a Christian, and if your church disagrees, it’s not God’s church.

God is what He is, and one thing He is, is a Jew. God is a Jew. And regardless of how many Gentiles accept Christ, the Jews will always be closer to His heart than we are. That’s in the Bible. And Eretz Israel is in the Bible. God promised the Jews a nation with Jerusalem as its capital and center of worship, and it’s bigger than the nation they have now, and they’re going to get it, and I support it wholeheartedly. Every Christian should. I don’t want to hear the secular arguments. Number one, they’re filled with error and tacit anti-Semitism and hostility toward Christianity and God. Number two, I don’t care. God is right. Everyone who disagrees is wrong. I will not oppose God. Your opinion on this matter means nothing. End of story. You will die, and your opinion will die with you, and God and the truth will still be here. Why should I care what you think?

Funny coincidence: I’ve been considering investing in Israel. I want to bless the Jews, and I want to link my fortunes with theirs. I’ve been thinking about buying Teva Pharmaceuticals stock. Great company. And it’s outside the US, where Hillarycare can’t do much to destroy it. It’s amazing how liberals want to destroy pharmaceutical companies and take their profits. Here’s a question. How many life-saving drugs have come out of the USSR and Communist China?

Vodka is not a life-saving drug, before you say it.

I keep trying to improve myself. I was born into a miserable family followed by misfortune, and over the last few years, I have been striving to pray and obey my way out of the curses that seem so hard to shake. And things have improved, slowly but surely. I once compared constant prayer to the stone-cracking force of a plant growing between rocks, and I still think that’s a good analogy. Things don’t change overnight, but the trend is clear and unstoppable. I feel like the dividends are really rolling in now. The other day I realized I was finally losing all desire to be cool, and I was losing my fear of being good and of being perceived as religious. I feel like I dropped a backpack full of lead. And I know it was not me, but God working within me. Giving me exactly what I asked for, I should add.

It is becoming more clear to me what I need to fix in my life. Here is something I just came across tonight, from the book of Galatians, chapter 5: “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.” That’s really helpful; I found it a little disturbing, as a matter of fact, because I saw little pieces of me in there. It’s easy to think you’re okay if you try to observe the Golden Rule and avoid the obvious sins, so a list like this is literally a godsend.

I think I’ve mentioned the fact that I’ve had concerns about being too hostile; it has been on my prayer list for quite some time, and possibly on the prayer lists of people at whom my hostility has been aimed. Between Internet rage and road rage, it’s a wonder any of us have a moment when we’re not furious and consumed by contempt. I think my moments are becoming longer and closer together.

It’s funny, but back when I was going to a charismatic church, I thought I was being diligent, but I really didn’t read the Bible nearly enough. I listened to preachers a lot, and unfortunately, a lot of them were self-serving, greedy, and completely lost. Lately I have found that there is no substitute for going to the source on your own. And again, here is a great website where you can do it. A computer tends to become an instrument which distributes and feeds lust, anger, greed, pride, and so on. But it can also be a tool for learning about and pleasing God. You can study online, you can write things that are helpful to others, and you can even vet and donate to ministries and charities. That’s fantastic! That is real power; beating the devil with his own weapon. Finally the web is truly good for something.

I feel very different from the way I felt a few months ago, even though I was pleased with the progress I was making at the time. With regard to some issues, I look back and feel as though I used to be brainwashed. I can’t believe I thought as I did. That’s growth. And if it happened to me, it can happen to you. Pray regularly, and try to remember, it’s not all about asking for things you want. Ask for wisdom and knowledge and help with obedience. Use a list, so you know you’re being consistent and persistent. Set aside time in the morning and time before bed. It works. I know. I was right about homemade pizza, wasn’t I? It’s not a hard job. The more you change, the more you want to change, and the easier it gets. Have faith that in the future, as you improve, you’ll want and enjoy the things God wants you to have. Don’t expect a perfect life. But do expect more peace. Relief. Comfort. And more satisfaction with yourself. And of course, help with your problems.

If you’re as disgusted as I am by the anti-Semitic propaganda coming from churches that aren’t really churches, maybe you’ll want to do something about it. Invest in an Israeli company. Write something positive about Israel on your blog. Give money to the IFCJ and help an oppressed Jew move to Israel; that would really hurt the enemy.

Israel will win in the end. Eretz Israel will be established. The only question is, whose side will you have to say you were on when it’s over? I’m very, very comfortable with my choice.

Greenjeans was Always Smarter

Let’s start the day with a fresh quotation from the memoirs of Christopher Walken:

Keeshan thought he was a player, until Mr. Greenjeans sold him out to Rogers. He was always at Keeshan’s side, with a 12-gauge pump under his overalls. He kept Keeshan safe while he muscled his way into cereal sponsorships and got free content by obtaining compromising photos of Tom Terrific and Mighty Manfred. Sick stuff. Straps and ropes, I mean. Pulleys, I’m talking about. Cables. Not just the bestiality angle.

Anyway, one day Greenjeans put chloral hydrate in Keeshan’s corn flakes, and when he woke up, he was in the Land of Make-Believe, in Rogers’s compound, tied to a papier-mache mountain. Sad scene. He looked around and figured out where he was, and then he looked at Greenjeans. And he said, “I always thought it would be Dancing Bear.”

So Fred offers us milk and cookies and then he gets down to brass tacks. “Boys,” he said, “I have a wonderful opportunity for you. That’s a very big word, isn’t it? ‘Opportunity.’” We both agreed that it was quite large. So Rogers goes on. “There is this fellow down at PBS, and I’m afraid he doesn’t know how to play nice. He doesn’t know how to share. Sharing is very important, don’t you think?” Definitely. No argument from us. Then Keeshan starts mumbling, like he’s having a dream. “Ping pong balls…NO…no more ping pong balls. Jesus help me…can’t breathe…” But he shut up again, and Fred went on.

I had a real crisis this week. I lost my Winn-Dixie reward card. I’ve written about it before. This is a bar-code keychain tag that opens the door to a world of glorious discounted pork. It’s not really mine. Years ago, my father got one, and I stole it. I don’t want to get one in my own name, because they use the damn things to spy on you, and I don’t want David Chertoff monitoring my pork habits. Although now that I think about it, it would probably convince him I was not a terrorist.

I tried signing up online and having them send me a new one, using my customary alias, “Red Butz.” But I guess they smelled a rat, because it never arrived.

Fortunately, I thought to look in my jeans. I wear long pants about five times a year, sometimes for periods as short as two hours, so the jeans don’t see the washer very often. I’m not one of those disgusting people who wear jeans until they get greasy brown stains on the thighs and they stand up all by themselves, but I’m not washing my jeans after two hours. Come on. So anyway, it turned out the precious card was in the pocket, and I am overjoyed.

WD has center cut pork chops on sale; buy one, get one free. Not quite as good as the regular chops, but I’ll take them. No word on chitlins this week. The lamb chops look tempting.

If you are willing to brine your pork, you can eat dirt cheap for the rest of your life. Picnic hams and Boston butts often stink, but a nice baking soda brine kills that, and then you have like ten pounds of great pork for eleven bucks. And if you bake it with the skin on, you get delicious, crunchy crackling-type things. I baked a picnic ham last week, and even though I eventually got sick of it and gave up, I still got five meals out of it for eleven dollars. I’m not cheap about food, but when you can get top-quality grub for ghetto prices, why not do it?

Switching subjects due to the discontinuation of my Ritalin prescription, I guess you’ve heard about my wacky neighbor, Mr. Calin Wong. He lives in Homestead, a few miles down the road. The cops just busted him for making online threats to reenact the Virginia Tech massacre. It would have worked, at the University of Miami. Gun-free, brain-free, safety-free. On the streets, however, he would have lasted a maximum of five minutes. Red state.

Wong owns several AKs plus some other crap. Like a number of people I could name (cough), he had a lot of ammunition. Scary! HELLO, ammunition is cheaper when you buy a lot. And no matter how much you have, you can only shoot one bullet at a time.

Even right-leaning Fox News went into pants-wetting mode over this guy’s “weapons cache.” Greg Kelly, a Marine reservist (colonel!) who used to appear on camera in a windcheater haircut, marveled at this character’s paltry weapons collection of a dozen guns. Thanks, Greg. That was very helpful.

Here’s a quote from The Miami Herald’s typically even-handed coverage:

He’d been banned from websites for fraudulent selling tactics, he’d been buying and selling weaponry over the Internet for two years, and he owned six or seven AK-47s and other firearms.

Still, they couldn’t charge him with a crime until they unexpectedly received a fax a month later from the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

Good God. All this apparent kook did was complain to the sheriff about an Internet ripoff, and the Herald says, “Still, they couldn’t charge him with a crime.” They mean before he supposedly made his threats. So if you work at the Herald, your default position is, if a person has a gun collection, it’s amazing that he can’t be arrested!

I probably have three hundred readers whose collections put this guy’s to shame. I wonder what the idiots at the Herald would think of you. No, I know what they’d think. If “think” is the appropriate term.

Anyway, Mr. Wong allegedly threatened to perpetrate a massacre, and he was turned in, and now he is no longer a gun owner, and he won’t be owning any guns in the future, unless he buys them illegally. Looks to me like the system worked.

Here’s another genius for you. Detective Rocky Rivera, of the Homestead PD: “Unfortunately, the way the law is written now, you can have as many guns as you want.” Thanks, Justice Cardozo. Thanks, Thomas Jefferson. Thanks for offering your help, rewriting the Constitution. I’m sure you’re qualified.

What is it with cops and their desire to control the public? This is the kind of person the founding fathers wanted to protect us from. A possible lunatic in Homestead has a few semiautomatic rifles, so the rest of us should be disarmed. Next, we need to get rid of those pesky fourth and fifth amendments. Because Officer Rocky the social engineer knows how to run your life better than you do. The cops are perfect; the rest of us need to be told what to do. Funny, wasn’t Drew Peterson a cop? Weren’t the Miami River Cops, who murdered in order to protect their cocaine-selling ring, cops? Isn’t Chicago having a major scandal right now, over lovely events like the beating of an unarmed female bartender who hadn’t committed a crime? We just had three faultless, infallible Miami cops convicted for planting guns on people they had shot, and lying about the shootings. And oh, yeah, cops aren’t famous for domestic violence beefs in their own homes. That never happens.

You know what? I’m sorry the cops have a dangerous job. I mean that sincerely. But the answer isn’t disarming the rest of us and trying to create a Nerf environment for the police to swagger and bark orders in. If you think we need to be disarmed so you can be safe while you work, it means you don’t have enough guts to do the job you signed up for. So quit and let somebody tougher than you step up to the plate.

Someone needs to explain to me how the number of guns Wong owned is an issue. How many can he shoot at once and hope to hit anything? Duh. Are you going to be more scared of an assailant with five rifles than an assailant with one rifle and five magazines? Sure. If you’re a moron. If you want to be concerned, be concerned that he didn’t have them in a safe, to keep them from being stolen and distributed to career criminals who aren’t stupid enough to announce their intentions on the Internet.

The folks at Fox were amazed that this guy got out on bail. WHAT? Look, his guns are gone. He’s going to be tried. He didn’t commit any acts of violence, and now he lacks the means to commit them in the future. I would be amazed if he is ever allowed to buy a gun again. He thought he was a big man, but now he’s No-Gun Boy and an object of ridicule. He now lives under a microscope. Bail is almost certainly appropriate, by the standards applied to other criminal defendants. O.J. Simpson got bailed out after being credibly accused of armed robbery with a firearm. Use your head, Greg Kelly. Due process exists, even for complete idiots who make Internet threats.

You know, I love to shoot. It gets me outdoors. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. It’s tremendous fun. I think I might want to hunt in the future, because it’s a good skill to have, but I can’t stand watching anything die, and would much rather hand over my wallet than shoot another human being. While I believe in the right to self-defense, I’m not at all sure I could exercise it, unless another person was in danger. But the tiny minds at the Herald conflate boring, harmless hobbyists like me with immature cranks who threaten to murder people over the Internet. And if you have guns, you’re in the same boat. You should be arrested NOW, because some day you MIGHT make a threat. It’s Minority-Report-style pre-crime, only instead of relatively intelligent psychics, we have far-left fascist pinheads.

Great. Always nice to know you’re going to get a fair shot from the media.

I can’t believe Greg Kelly’s reaction to the guns. Which part of the Marine Corps does he belong to? The Martha Stewart Brigade? The Marines still have weapons, don’t they? There’s a fan site dedicated to him. It calls him the King of the Embeds. I’m sure he saw a weapon or two in Iraq, and I know he has a positive attitude toward the military. How could he get so excited over the obligatory “entire collection piled on a table” photo? Those photos represent a classic cop and newspaper tactic intended to inflame public hysteria and help get gun control laws passed. They rarely pose with other confiscated items. Gun collections? ALWAYS. How could he fall for it? I’m a Fox fan, but come on.

“Weapons cache.” I used to have an “arsenal,” but now I have a “weapons cache.” I guess I also have a CD cache and an aged beef cache and a beer cache and a birdseed cache. David Koresh had nothing on me.

Anyway, if you’re ever in Homestead, feel free to drop in on Calin Wong and demand his lunch money. There isn’t a hell of a lot he can do to stop you now.

Hurry up With That Bosco

I think that every morning for the foreseeable future, I should post a memorable quote from a Christopher Walken story. I’m going to get a head start on tomorrow.

Anyway, I recently contacted his manager and got the dope on Wesley by applying a Vise Grip to the end of his left index finger. From Sears. A real Vise Grip. Not some cheap Chinese knockoff. The Chinese ones tend to twist off just when the information is starting to flow.

Let me tell you one thing. One piece of knowledge you can cherish and utilize until your dying day. Which will not be soon, let’s hope. Unless you aggravate me. When you’re applying pressure to a man’s fingernails to find out, say, the location of a dead midget you accidentally offed in a moment of high spirits, you really need American quality. However the Chinese ones are fine for smacking people in the mouth.

In the Black!

FINALLY a satisfying day at the range. With my exceedingly tactical Stanley rolling toolbox.

I started out with the PSL/Romak III. I thought I had fixed the trigger spring problem, but it failed to cock itself after two pretty awful shots. So I put it away and got out the K31, and I shot this target at 50 yards with my Rock, Jr. rest.

I felt pretty good about that. The shots at the upper edge are PSL shots. I didn’t do great, but I was getting better. Turned out the scope was loose for a couple of those, but I wasn’t shooting well enough for it to matter.

Second bunch:

Much better. So I got cocky and moved to 100 yards.

Given my previous efforts, I was pretty happy. And I realized something. My trigger pull was most of the problem. A guy next to me was telling me I needed a rear bag to keep the gun on target, but the sights stuck to the red dot in the center of the bullseye like they had been nailed to it. So I worked on it, and things got better. So much better I sometimes thought I had missed the target entirely, because the pattern didn’t open up when I shot.

I am totally thrilled with these results. I had one flyer, but working on the trigger pull made a gigantic difference. Now I know what my big problem is, so I expect to improve a lot from here on out. And even now, I can shoot well enough to kill stuff.

I moved on to the pistol side. I missed the old days, when I shot better than I currently do, and I wondered if going from a Glock to a 1911 was the problem. So I shot my Glock 22, in .40 S&W. It really is easier to hang onto and shoot. First 25, at 7 yards:

I was actually happy with that, because while I wandered vertically, I started noticing and fixing things about my trigger pull. I seem to be flinching sometimes, from back in the wrist. It’s obviously not a bad flinch, but it’s something to work on. I shot another 25 rounds, and then I shot 25 with the SW1911, to see the difference. Trail Glades has a ridiculous rule that you can’t have more than one bullseye on a pistol target, so I decided to shoot a hole in the upper right area and use it as a second bullseye. Let’s see them make a rule against THAT.

My concentration went to hell on the last 25 because I was tired, and because one of the range officers dragged a bunch of noobs over to my area and started using me as a teaching example. Very flattering, but not great for my aim. Anyway, the first 10 or so shot well enough to convince me that the 1911 is more accurate for me.

Man, I feel better. Finally, some progress. I was starting to think I would never be able to shoot a scoped rifle. Now I have hope again. And I think the lesson I learned from the rifle is going to make a big difference in my pistol shooting. I really look forward to that.

Nice $350 scoped rifle, huh?

Whee

For some mysterious reason, Trail Glades keeps changing its hours and failing to post the information on the web. So last week I was pretty surprised when my shockingly late arrival at the range turned out to be uber-punctual. They open at 1:00 on Thursdays. But wait…those are the winter hours. According to a sign at the range, during the rest of the year, they open at…1:00.

I’ll be making a visit today. I fixed the Romak III so it would cock itself properly, and I received a new ring for the scope on the K31, and I want to shoot a few .40 rounds, too.

I couldn’t find rings that would fit the Accumount anywhere, so I emailed the guy who made it, and he sold me a new ring for five bucks, shipped. Not bad.

I’ll be taking the new Tactical Trolley with me. This is the Stanley toolbox I got for the range. Very exciting. Don’t you wish you were me? I just bet you do.

My Speer manual is on the way. I can’t believe it’s impossible to walk into a store and buy it, but there it is. On the way to the range, I’m picking up a drill guide, and I’ll get a two-by-six for the bench, too.

I guess I’m a gun nut now. Although I’m not positive I qualify, since in addition to owning a lot of paraphernalia, I also put bullets inside the black on occasion. And I’m still holding off on a full-body camo tattoo.

I’m glad I wised up about going to the range on weekends. Weekdays are much better, although the likelihood of being embarrassed by better shooters is dramatically higher. I think weekdays are safer. Last time I went on a weekend, a bus full of kids unloaded, and for a while, it was like March of 2003 in Baghdad. The rangemaster probably lost his voice by the time the range closed.

Wish me a totally tactical afternoon.