A-I-AIO!

Yesterday was pretty interesting. I drove to Orlando to get beer ingredients and equipment.

I used to have all sorts of brewing items. A fermenting fridge. A freezer turned into a kegerator. Brew kettle. Lautering tun. Stir plate. Kegs. Gas bottles. Measuring stuff. When I left Miami, I had no help and a parent with dementia, so I must have thrown out or given away $10,000 worth of belongings, and most of the beer things went. Also, my kegerator died one day without warning, so that had to be hauled off.

Over the last couple of days, I rooted around, and I learned that I had a cornucopia of brewing paraphernalia. Here is a comprehensive list:

1. A brew kettle I no longer need.
2. A wort chiller I no longer need.
3. A hydrometer I no longer need.
4. A mercury thermometer I no longer need.
5. A control to maintain a high temperature in a freezer.
6. A $6 handle for lifting carboys.

So all I lacked was the other $90,000 worth of equipment.

Brewing used to be cheap, apart from equipment. I used to spend $20 for 5 gallons of the best beer on Earth. Best to me, I mean. People like different things for some reason. I nearly always ordered ingredients online. I placed orders large enough to get free shipping, so all was well.

This week, I went to Morebeer.com, which has apparently absorbed and digested some of the other companies I used to use. The cost for ingredients for one beer had shot up to close to $50.

I realize Joe Biden is president, and this is the beginning of the apocalypse, but that seemed unreasonable to me.

The problem was made worse by their unwillingness to sell me the amount I needed at a uniform price. If you need 9 pounds of a malt, you can’t order it. You can order 5 + 3 + 1, with the per-pound price going up sharply as increments shrink, or you can order 10 pounds and either throw out or try to store the excess. Holding onto extra grain is not practical. It’s mouse bait, it takes up room, and you have only 6 months to use it. Basically, you have to pay for something you don’t want.

On top of this, Morebeer charges about 10% to crush the grain in preparation for brewing. You can spend $160 on a machine to crush grain–one like the one I threw out–or you can pay as you go.

The nice thing about Morebeer is that they kill shipping on big orders, but by the time you’ve given them a lot more money than you want to, you’ve paid for shipping.

The local place I found 1) charges way less for malt across the board, 2) crushes it free of charge, 3) lets you order malt and hops in tiny increments, 4) bags things separately and labels the bags, and 5) charges about 40% less for yeast.

I probably spent $30 or more in tolls and gas yesterday, but I saved about $30 on ingredients alone, I got exactly what I wanted, I got it fast, and I was able to look around the store and see if I needed anything else. Yes, you can do that at Morebeer.com, but it’s not the same as being there in the flesh. You don’t have to scroll and flip pages.

During the drive, I prayed and listened to the Bible, which is what I always do in the car unless someone distracts me. Guess who I heard about? Naboth.

Talk about good timing.

Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard, but Naboth didn’t want to see. Ahab started crying, literally, so his wife Jezebel paid two losers to accuse Naboth of blasphemy. Naboth was stoned by a mob, and Ahab took the vineyard.

Why is this interesting? Because Naboth, a man who made wine, is the good guy in the story.

Please don’t try to con anyone with the idea that “vineyard” was a mistranslation. The Hebrew word clearly means a place where grapes are grown. Naboth wasn’t growing tangerines.

I really feel that God pushed me back into brewing, and I find it confusing, so I have been thinking and praying about it. Very often, when there is something I need to know, related material pops up on my car stereo. Looks like it happened again.

A lot of Christians are intolerant teetotalers. They insist that no Christian should ever drink anything alcoholic. I don’t know where they get this idea.

1. Jesus drank wine. Hello? He also ate meat. In fact, it was a sin for a Jew to be a vegetarian because of the Passover requirement. Jesus drank wine during Passover, which was months after the grape harvest, so fermentation had to have occurred.

2. The Bible says wine is a blessing. Psalm 104 says God gave it to make man’s heart glad. And no, doesn’t mean we’re glad because we’re not thirsty. Come on. Don’t torture the text.

3. Losing a vineyard’s production is a curse in the Bible. See Deuteronomy 28:39.

4. In Deuteronomy 14:26 the Lord commanded the Jews to have a feast and have “wine, other intoxicating liquor, or anything you please.”

Back in Biblical times, Jews were not knocking themselves out in their vineyards because they liked table grapes or raisins. If they were excited about fruit, the Bible would be full of material about things like figs and pomegranates, and it isn’t. Wine and grapes are mentioned much more often. The Jews wanted wine. And God had no problem with it. Misuse of alcohol was what he hated. It has never been much of a problem among Jews.

Some Christians make the ridiculous claim that the wine ancient Jews drank was just unfermented grape juice. The problem with that is that ancient Israel had no refrigeration and plenty of hot weather. Heat plus grape juice and a couple of weeks equals wine. It takes considerable work for a low-technology person to eliminate or reduce grape juice fermentation in a hot climate.

It is very obvious that Christian teetotaling is a post-Biblical creation. At the same time, the Bible condemns drunkenness beyond any doubt.

Some of life’s pleasures are wrong all the time. Others are only wrong when they cause problems. Food and drink fall into the latter category. If alcoholic drinks cause you no problems, there is no reason to avoid them. If they do, you should abstain.

When I was young, I drank to get drunk. Often. It was one of life’s great pleasures for me. The thought of doing that now is repulsive to me. I remember the dizzy feelings and the way I smelled of alcohol. I remember the stupid things I did. I remember hangovers and vomiting. I don’t want any of that, ever. To me, now, alcohol might as well be mineral water, except for the taste.

Since the idea of returning to homebrewing arose, I’ve had several beers (never two in one day), but before that, I was having maybe two drinks per month. By “drink,” I mean a real drink, not a 14-ounce martini or a huge cocktail. I mean a small glass of sherry, a shot of expensive whiskey, or maybe a beer. If I couldn’t have another drink for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t be a huge sacrifice. I keep alcohol on hand primarily for cooking. I use sherry for pork roasts and soup, whiskey for barbecue, beer for barbecue, and wine for lots of things.

Actually, I should come clean. I forgot that I had several beers and one gin and tonic in Singapore last month. I was in a foreign country, and I wanted to see what the beer was like, so there were times when I had one beer with a meal. I had the gin and tonic because tourists in Singapore are supposed to go to the Raffles Hotel Long Bar and have cocktails.

Alcohol doesn’t cause me problems. It used to, but that ended a long time ago. There is no reason for me become a teetotaling legalist fanatic. Avoiding alcohol because it messes up your life is not legalism; it’s common sense. Avoiding it because you think God will put a black mark on a scoreboard in heaven is legalism. Christianity is not a game of points.

Listening to Naboth’s story made me feel a lot better. I don’t want to do anything God hasn’t told me to do, and alcohol has been involved in the destruction of many, many people. For example, my dad and his father were alcoholics. Also, I would prefer not to upset future guests any more than necessary. Sooner or later, I’ll probably have to get some kind of kegerator, and there it will be, in my house, staring people in the face.

You have to fear God’s disapproval, not other people’s.

I suppose many people think there is no reason to drink alcohol except to get drunk. That’s a problem of limited perspective due to lack of knowledge. If you’ve never had alcohol, or you’ve never drunk except to get hammered, maybe you could get the impression that alcohol has no other purpose. It’s not true at all.

It’s a lot like saying there is no reason to own more than one gun, which is like saying drugstores should only carry one medicine or there should only be one size spoon. It reflects unfamiliarity with the subject.

I have never been much of a wine person, but I know a little bit about beer. It’s an exhaustive topic.

Beers start with grain. Most beer is made from barley, but there are zillions of different barleys. Dark ones. Light ones. Barleys that provide sweetness to beer. Cheap, nasty barley for beers like Budweiser. Beers are also made with corn, oats, wheat, and rice. I’m sure you will find other things beer can be made from. Anything with starch should work. They all contribute different flavors and colors.

The next main ingredient is hops. There are many different varieties, and they taste different. There are American hops that taste like oranges, grapefruit, and lemons. There are European hops that taste like cloves. Using the wrong hop in a beer can ruin it. Adding the hops at different times during brewing also makes a big difference in what you end up with. Many recipes use more than one type of hop.

The last important ingredient is yeast. The Wyeast company, one of the two big suppliers, lists over 60 beer yeasts on its site, and there is a reason for that. They work at different temperatures. They produce different flavors. Yeast doesn’t just produce alcohol and gas. It produces chemicals that change the taste of beer.

With all the different ingredients and brewing methods, there are many, many very different types of beer. The range of flavors is staggering. They suit different occasions, seasons, and foods.

Anyone who thinks all beer is the same should try a weissbier next to an imperial stout and an IPA (India Pale Ale).

If you can understand why there are so many different wines in the world, you should be able to understand the reason for making different beers. No one with any brains would say champagne is interchangeable with chianti. You should be able to understand that it’s not about getting drunk. If it were, I wouldn’t ever have one beer by itself. Lovers of good beer are actually pretty sophisticated.

If I start believing God is against the brewing operation, I’ll sell my stuff and take the hit. I am not married to the notion. I can go either way.

My brewing appliance, a Braumeister 20L V2, should get here tomorrow. That means I may be brewing Sunday.

For anyone who is still reading, the Braumeister is a self-contained system, commonly known as a self-contained system or all-in-one. There are a bunch of these things on the market. I don’t think they existed when I quit brewing.

I picked the Braumeister because the others appear to have problems. The Braumeister is German and more expensive than most. Sometimes those things mean something. I have seen new ones prices at $3000, but the great thing about brewing is that guys give it up, so I found a lightly-used one for a small fraction of that.

AIO’s, to use brewer jargon, let you do everything but fermentation in one vessel. When I used to brew, I mashed first. This means I put the grain in a kettle of hot water so the enzymes in it would turn the starch to sugar. Then I moved it to another device, and I rinsed the liquid and sugar out, back into the kettle. This gave me a sweet solution called “wort,” which rhymes with “squirt.” Then I boiled the solution with hops and drained it into a fermenting container. After the first fermentation, I could choose to move it to a big bottle, or carboy, and let it finish.

This is how I remember it, anyway.

With an AIO, you dump the grain and water into the machine and leave it there until you move it to the fermenter. It controls the mashing temperatures and times (there may be several for one batch). When mashing is done, you remove the grain and boil the wort with hops and whatever else you want. The machine has a timer. Then you cool the wort, put it in a fermenter, and add your yeast. This is called “pitching.”

You end up with less stuff to wash, and you don’t have to stand next to the kettle all day. The electronics prevent a lot of fussing with a clock, turkey fryer, and thermometer.

Here is what people say: AIO’s don’t make better beer; they make better brew days.

I plan to make an ale I named “Senseless Cruelty.” Maybe I’ll change that. It’s a high-IBU (bitter) ale like an IPA. I chose it because this is the only beer I ever fermented at room temperature. To ferment cooler, I will need another fridge or a fermenter that will fit in the little one I have. I expect to put the fermenter on the garage floor. Sometimes fermentations go too fast, and things leak, so I want to make my return to brewing with a safe approach.

In order to be ready on Sunday, I need to make a yeast starter today. I have yeast, so I have to boil some yeast extract in a flask and add yeast. Then I’ll let it ferment until I brew. The more yeast you have when you pitch, the less likely a problem is.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I look forward to seeing what the purpose is.

Plus Unexpected Beer Content

Here is something I have believed for a long time: if you pray in tongues a lot, instead of hearing God’s truths for the first time from preachers, you will hear them from the Holy Spirit, and if preachers mention them later, it will just be confirmation.

This has been my experience, and there is also evidence for it in the Bible.

Here are some words from Galatians 1:

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:

And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,

To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.

Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.

Here is something John said:

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

This idea makes a lot of Christians angry because they have been raised to worship preachers, not the Holy Spirit. When Christians argue, they often say this preacher said this and that preacher said that, instead of referring to the Bible and the things they have received from the Holy Spirit. Because of this, one corrupt preacher can corrupt a lot of people.

Jesus said to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees for this reason. Leavening is something that grows in dough until the whole loaf is infected. “Infection” is the correct word. Brewers use it to describe things that grow in beer, including yeast.

The Jews fell into the same trap as Christians who rely on preachers too much. They are taught to rely on sages to tell them what the Bible means. When they discuss religion, they quote Maimonides and Rashi and so on, and they discourage people from forming conclusions without relying on learned men.

If everyone hears from the Holy Spirit, Satan has to deceive a huge number of people in order to get anywhere. That’s hard for him to do, because he is weak and small. If people listen to a few preachers instead, all he has to do is ruin the preachers. Then the rot gets into everyone else.

This is what has actually happened to the church.

Today I watched a recent Mark Hemans video, and I enjoyed it, because he confirmed things I had been telling people for years. He says that if you want to be Spirit-led, you should be praying all the time about little decisions. You shouldn’t divide your life into a secular part, where you do whatever you think is best, and a religious part, where you try to do what God tells you. You should pray all the time, even about things like ordering at McDonald’s or picking out new socks.

Even if the decisions aren’t that important, the practice is. And nobody wants unsatisfying socks.

A long time ago, God directed my attention to the fact that in the Bible, doing what you think is right is evil. It sounds strange, but it’s true. If you read through the Bible and look at the occasions when people “did that which was right in their own eyes,” you will see that those people were disobeying God. That’s what doing that which is right in your own eyes means.

I would hate to have to sit here and list all the verses that confirm what I’m saying. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” That appears twice in Proverbs. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.” “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.” Moses said: “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.”

I could sit here for hours doing this.

We are supposed to do what God says is right, and while the Bible is helpful in determining that, its advice is general, and not every verse applies to every situation. If you doubt that, look at these consecutive verses:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, Lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own conceit.

How can you do both, in every situation? It’s not possible. Someone has to tell you which course is appropriate. You need the Holy Spirit, who wrote the Bible. Talking to the author is even better than reading the book.

It is tiresome, listening to people who say the Bible is perfect and that we don’t need any other guide. The Bible itself contradicts this belief. Consider what the Ethiopian eunuch said to Philip when he was asked if he understood Isaiah: “How can I, except some man should guide me?” Philip, who heard from the Holy Spirit, was able to interpret Isaiah correctly for him, which is something generations of Jewish sages have never been able to do on their own.

To me, the challenge is distinguishing what the Holy Spirit says from what my wishful flesh says. You can sometimes compare what you hear to the Bible, but that’s not always helpful. The Bible doesn’t tell you which socks to buy.

Your flesh, and demons, can pipe up and pretend to be the Holy Spirit. “Go ahead and marry another man; God loves you as you are.” “Marijuana is fine; didn’t I create it?” You have to speak in tongues a lot, remove corrupting things from your life, and cast out your demons.

Lately, I have been getting a powerful urge to brew beer again. I don’t understand it. I miss the astounding beer I used to make, but I barely drink these days. I think I’ve had one drink this month. Also, brewing is work, and it costs money. Part of me is interested in brewing, and the other part thinks about the work, expense, and my low rate of consumption, not to mention the awkwardness of entertaining other Christians with a kegerator in the house.

I prayed about this several times, and I finally decided to go with it. I ordered a modern machine that does a lot of the work of brewing. I plan to order ingredients for a wheat beer. We’ll see what happens.

Christians don’t have to be teetotalers, and Jesus certainly wasn’t one, but it seems strange for God to suggest homebrewing to anyone. A similar pursuit got Noah in trouble.

Hemans also talks about the problem with assuming you can handle things. It doesn’t work. I try to avoid it. I tell people that when you tell God, “I got this,” he folds his arms and stops helping you. It’s pride, and God fights the proud, according to his word.

This is one reason why I fight the self-reliance culture many Christian men have picked up from things like football and military service. God isn’t looking for tough guys who strive in the flesh, working hard to please him. That would be like running a construction company and hiring people who refused to use power tools. It would be asinine. But men’s groups all over America are using football and soldiering as teaching tools. God is not a sports fan, and soldiering is about using carnal tools to fix problems caused by carnal people.

Sports nuts and military people teach pride, and that destroys Christians. Armies are not led by God these days, and God has never been behind competitive sports, so they have to have something to compensate, and pride and toughness are their crutches. They are substitutes for God’s help. Like all such substitutes, they get us into trouble.

You can’t take a breath without God’s assistance. Telling him you can fix your complex problems, which involve other human beings, demons, and who knows what else, is extremely arrogant. You are weak. Nobody can stand up to the world without help.

I’m very glad to get confirmation that some of the things I believe came from God and not my imagination. It gives me hope that life will continue to improve in spite of my own efforts.

Frisky Persecutors Undeterred

I guess anyone who reads what I write about The Last Reformation will think I’m a hard core supporter who thinks Torben Sondergaard has all the answers mankind has been seeking. That isn’t true. I have never belonged to The Last Reformation, and I disagree with them on minor points of doctrine. I have some concerns that it could become a cult over time, and I think they may be making things too systematic. On the whole, though, I support them, and I know they do wonderful work.

All that being said, I am at it again.

Recently, TLR put up two videos about Torben, who is still in jail or prison or something. “Detention,” I think they call it. Makes incarcerating people who haven’t been found guilty of anything sound better. TLR is trying to set the record straight. I’m going to embed the videos here.

My only complaint with the videos is that comments are disabled. That’s a bad move. It makes TLR look like it’s afraid something will be exposed.

It’s fascinating how things unfolded. The videos contain new information. It turns out Danish TV, which belongs to the government, sent two spies to TLR’s facility, and they both told huge lies on camera.

The spies pretended to be Christians, and they asked to be baptized. They even went so far as to give false testimonies later to be used in videos.

As TLR’s second video says, these are people who have no fear of God. No one who believes in a just God would ask to be baptized while lying to the people doing the baptizing, and certainly, no real Christian would lie later in a video testimony.

The name of one of the spies is Sebastian Svensson. This man is accused of doing something so low, it’s hard to believe. The story: in private, he told Torben he had inherited a lot of money, and he said he wanted to give it to Torben. When Torben told him he could donate via the TLR website, he refused. He said he wanted Torben, not the ministry, to have it. Torben never took the money.

In America, this tactic is considered so unfair, law enforcement can’t use it. It’s called entrapment. Black’s Law Dictionary defines it this way: “a law-enforcement officer’s or government agent’s inducement of a person to commit a crime, by means of fraud or undue persuasion, in an attempt to later bring a criminal prosecution against that person.”

More simply, the cops aren’t allowed to go up to a person who has no plans to commit a crime and entice or pressure him until he commits one.

Svensson is a journalist, not a cop, and statutes barring entrapment don’t apply, but the principle underlying the prohibition still applies. Entrapment is a slimy thing to do. In some courts, a private party who entraps someone is considered guilty of the crime of aiding and abetting.

I don’t bring these legal points up to suggest Svensson broke the law. I’m just using them to highlight the vileness of the things TLR says he did.

Is entrapment considered ethical by journalists? If so, then a journalist’s job isn’t just to cover crime but to make it happen. Bribing a preacher with no record of dishonesty is like Woodward and Bernstein telling Nixon he should have people break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

When I was going to Trinity Church in Miami, a member tried to give the church a car, and Pastor Rich Wilkerson jumped right up and snagged it for himself. The church got nothing. Too bad Svennson wasn’t there.

Another journalist, Amalie Borup, filmed a private discussion with Torben and then published parts of it. According to TLR, she took things out of context and tried to make it seem that Torben had told her to stop taking a prescription.

TLR says he never does this, and I believe it. He’s not a moron. Obviously, telling people to abandon medical treatment can lead to legal problems, and aside from that, every Christian who knows anything about healing and deliverance knows that problems may return.

You can watch the second TLR video and see these schemers go under the water, wasting people’s time, and then testify about how it changed them.

Why believe TLR about the prescription story? Well, the journalists are proven liars, for one thing, and I have never seen anyone at TLR get caught in a lie.

The video also tells about random Internet warriers who put out rumors claiming Torben makes a lot of money from TLR and only cares about getting rich.

Is this true?

TLR is transparent, and no one has ever published a story saying he or she looked at the books and found wrongdoing. But apart from that, they don’t behave like greedy preachers.

I have been to several TLR events, I have received lots of their group emails, and of course, I have seen their website and videos. Here are my observations.

1. If they have asked for money, apart from taking quiet, unpressured collections at meetings, I am unaware of it.

2. I have no recollection of ever seeing a TLR person draw a connection between giving TLR money and receiving financial prosperity from God.

3. Torben and his family look like they dress from Kohl’s and Marshall’s.

4. Torben criticizes the prosperity gospel.

TLR also complains about people who call it a cult. The big problem with the proposition that TLR is that so far, no one has produced any evidence.

What are some things cults do? They control people. They isolate them from other people. They don’t permit dissent, so there is no accountability. They may expect people to turn over assets. Cults are often led by individuals who are considered infallible.

Now that I think about it, this describes the Catholic Church, back in the days when they still burned people alive.

It is true that TLR has enforced some annoying rules at some of its live-in retreats. For example, they have required people who live close by to sleep in dormitories and be in bed by a certain hour. These things did not sit well with me. I have enough problems sleeping at home, and I’m not excited about using a community shower or toilet. On the other hand, if you go to a TLR meeting, you will notice the following things:

1. You don’t have to pay a dime. You may be required to give a refundable deposit in order to reserve a spot, but they do this because people who hate them used to take up all the spots in order to kill attendance and leave them holding the bag when paid venues expected payment.

2. You can come and go as you wish. They don’t even notice. If you only want to see the second day of a three-day event, and you want to show up two hours late, that’s fine.

3. No one pushes you to join. They tell you how to do it, and they leave it at that.

4. People in attendance run around healing, praying, and casting demons out without direct supervision. If you want to cast a demon out of someone, you can walk into a TLR meeting from the street, find a person, and go to work. No one will question you. I’ve seen people ministering spontaneously, and I’ve done it, so I know what I’m talking about.

5. Torben is not the only one doing things, as #4 suggests. In fact, the other people there will correct you if you think you have to deal with Torben directly. You may, if you want, but they make it clear he’s not God’s unique emissary. A guy who prayed with me somehow got the idea that I thought Torben had to do it, and he gave me a little lecture. It is true that a lot of misguided people put him on a pedestal, but that’s their own fault. He doesn’t attend every event. Especially now, while he’s in jail.

6. TLR gives things away. They give away water, snacks, DVD’s, and books.

7. They have never told me who to associate with, although the Bible itself makes it clear we need to cut certain types of people off.

If this is a cult, it’s the sorriest cult in human history. They’re doing everything wrong. In comparison, Orthodox Judaism, the Masons, and even the Boy Scouts look like the Branch Davidians.

I have tried to find eyewitness testimony proving TLR is a cult, but I can’t come up with anything. I keep seeing Google results that look promising, but when I click on them, it’s usually some fringe kook claiming TLR is a cult because it disagrees with him about doctrine. Cessationists really love to call TLR a cult. It infuriates them when anyone claims to have received a healing, and talking about tongues is like jabbing them with a pointed stick. Some atheists also hate TLR, but what preacher don’t they hate?

A ridiculous site ironically labeled Rationalwiki says TLR is a cult, but all it publishes is innuendo. “Professionals” have criticized TLR! Professional what? Ballroom dancers? Drywall installers?

A former member says TLR is heretical! What? By whose standards? Jesus was labeled a heretic. Protestants consider Catholics heretics. Again, disagreement over doctrine does not form a basis for labeling TLR a cult.

Irrationalwiki says TLR “abused” a handicapped woman who developed psychosis caused by the abuse. It says she had to receive 24-hour care for years. Who defines “abuse”? Not Rationalwiki. What was the abuse? What were the symptoms of psychosis? Who made the diagnosis? Who says it was caused by TLR? Rationalwiki does, and that’s good enough for you. It provides a link to a Facebook post to prove it. If you don’t have Facebook, too bad.

The psychosis claim comes from an entity called InsideOut. This outfit claims Torben performs “violent” exorcisms. Excuse me; I’ve been there. The only thing resembling violence comes from the people being delivered. They often thrash and yell. There is no violence. The people around them comfort them and help them not to injure themselves.

Try to find information on InsideOut. You’ll find it’s extremely obscure. TLR-bashers call it “a Danish anti-cult corporation.” People love using words like corporation and coalition to describe a nut with a Wix website. The leader of InsideOut is named Camilla Johnson. Try to find her on the web. Good luck, because I got nowhere.

My bet is that InsideOut’s headquarters is her apartment.

A number of the powerful arguments Rationalwiki confidently presents are simply references to people who think Torben is wrong to believe basic Christian tenets. In other words, atheists. To most atheists, I guess every religion is a cult.

Here is a quotation Rationalwiki presents, approvingly, on its page about Jesus:

“Jesus was no perfect man, no meek or wise messiah: in fact his philosophies were and are largely immoral, often violent, as well as shallow and irrational.”

“Rational”…wiki.

You should always look out when a person claims to be rational. It’s funny, but people who claim to prefer logic and science to religion never seem to notice that science has proven that human beings can’t be rational. Look up “Clever Hans.” Look up “double blind.”

Too often, “rational” really means, “motivated by an irrational hatred of religion.”

Persecution is amazing. It doesn’t have to have a single grain of truth in it to motivate people.

I have a relative who is convinced TLR is a cult. Strangest thing. She doesn’t actually know much about it. She thinks its leader is a criminal, and she hasn’t even heard about the immigration thing. She doesn’t know TLR’s name. The other day, I heard she was concerned I was running around with “NRA.” I wish she would read up and find out how mistaken she is.

Maybe some preacher she likes, who sees Torben as a threat, said some bad things about him. Torben is definitely a threat to big, profitable churches.

I have wondered why Torben ended up in jail, given that you would expect God to look after him. I wonder if it has to do with putting his trust in carnal people and the United States government. It’s just my impression. Maybe he would have been jailed no matter what.

His US asylum case has been rejected, and many people think it’s unfair. I have no idea whether that’s true or not. I don’t know the law surrounding asylum. Maybe his case is completely normal, and he doesn’t meet the criteria for asylum. I know it’s a big mistake for laymen, and lawyers who are not familiar with a case, to draw conclusions.

TLR is no cult, so don’t be nervous about visiting their meetings. The rumors about leather straps and electrodes are grossly exaggerated.

Jesus Jesus Jesus

It’s very bad when we think Christmas is about elves and an imaginary nutcase who climbs down chimneys to give gifts to other people’s children. It’s bad when we think it’s about money and gifts. It’s terrible when we call Christmas “season” or “holiday” in order to accommodate a minority’s phobia of the word “Christ.”

It’s also bad when we think Christmas is about getting together with our families and sharing love. Love without Jesus is one of the Antichrist’s favorite themes. He is always trying to push an alternative righteousness, telling us we can be good people without Jesus, and that this is all that matters. These are toxic lies.

Yesterday, I got supernatural revelation about Christmas. The reason to celebrate Christmas is that Jesus chose to come down here, to this filthy world, and give us eternal salvation.

Every Christian knows this, but it’s different when you get a revelation from the Holy Spirit. You don’t just know it. It becomes part of you.

If more of us had a heartfelt revelation, things would look very different in December. People would be overjoyed at Christmas celebrations, thinking about the gift they’ve received. No one would care about those stupid, idolatrous elves or Black Friday or Cyber Monday or Special Extended Cyber Tuesday or any of that. No one would be thinking about new cars with big ribbons around them. No one would hold drunken Christmas parties where people find other people to fornicate with.

There definitely wouldn’t be a big audience for dirty Christmas movies made by Hollywood pagans, perverts, sluts, and addicts.

It is amazing that God Himself came down to this rotten place and let the people who rejected him torture him to death so He could save them.

Yesterday when I prayed, in my mind, I kept hearing, “Thank you for coming for us!” Today, I kept hearing, “You came for us!”

Sometimes people feel let down at Christmas because they’re alone or they didn’t get presents. No one should feel bad today. Wherever you are and whatever your circumstances are, you can have the biggest present of all, right now. You may think Christmas has been a bust, but it’s really an unqualified success. It’s a complete victory. It worked.

I hope this helps people who feeling bad today. Snap out of it. You won. You just have to claim your present.

Plus a Much Better Gift

It’s Christmas Eve, and I am all by myself except for Marvin. But don’t pity me. I spent a lot of the day communicating with close friends and my beautiful wife, and I made Marvin and myself a pretty decadent dinner. Now I’ve decided to come here and save the world. I will tell you how to make creme brulee very easily.

My wife loves creme brulee, so I decided I should learn how to make it. The other day, I made my first batch, using a surprisingly clumsy recipe from The New York Times. Even in its withered state, this major metropolitan newspaper has ample resources to find a good creme brulee recipe, and they didn’t do it. There is no way to justify that.

The recipe required me to use a water bath, and that doesn’t work for various reasons. Mainly, it requires you to use tall dishes. Creme brulee should be served in a shallow dish, and the dessert itself should be one inch deep at the very most.

Today I made Caesar salad with homemade croutons and anchovies, potatoes au gratin (sort of), a standing rib roast, and I felt it would be a crime not to have a dessert, hence the creme brulee.

I roasted the beef at 175° on a lark, and it worked beautifully. When it got over 100° inside, I cranked the oven to 550°, and I took the meat out at an internal temperature of 115°. It was nearly perfect. Pink nearly all the way to the edge. Tender. Not that juicy, though. I dry-aged it, and that removes some water. I think that may be a mistake for a roast. Next time, wet aging.

To age it, I salted it and left it in the fridge for something like 10 days. It was wrapped in plastic for the last three or maybe 4 because I was concerned about dryness.

I did something else that was new. I rinsed the excess salt off the raw meat. This turned out to be a great idea. I applied butter and pressed garlic before roasting.

This was not the greatest piece of beef. I cut a steak off of it a week ago, and it was not as juicy or tender as it should have been. Publix always puts rib roasts on sale at this time of year, and that’s why I bought this one. Unfortunately, just about all the roasts I saw at the store lacked real marbling.

Aging it made it tender and flavorful, but I should have wet-aged it to keep it as juicy as possible.

I used the Caesar recipe from Bon Appetit. It’s the best one I’ve found. You still have to increase the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies to make it work. The recipe calls for canola oil, but I avoid that stuff. I used cheap olive oil.

I took the NYT creme brulee recipe and more or less halved it. I increased the ratios of egg yolks and sugar to everything else. I doubled the vanilla extract. I skipped the water bath and 325° recommendation and baked at 205°.

The texture was perfect. The flavor was intoxicating. Better than restaurant creme brulee. Could not have been better except for the caramelization. I am not all that skillful with a Bernzomatic torch. I may buy an attachment called a Searzall to improve my work. The caramel tasted fine, but the browning looked uneven.

Here you go.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cream (I used regular whipping cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or fake vanilla extract
pinch salt
3 egg yolks
3/8 cup sugar

Heat your oven to 205°.

Forget all the stuff about heating this or whisking that. Dump everything into a bowl and mix it with a mixer on a fairly low setting so you don’t beat a lot of air into it. You do not want a foamy creme brulee. Just make it smooth and dissolve the sugar.

This makes 4 small servings or two fairly large ones. Your call. Size your dishes appropriately. Fill them up and put them in the oven.

Here is the uncertain part: I think this takes 90 minutes to cook, but I’m not positive, because I kept fooling with it. When it’s not jiggly any more, it’s done. Don’t wait for a knife to come out clean. I don’t think that will ever happen.

When it comes out, sprinkle sugar on top and roast it with a propane or butane torch. You can use a broiler, but they say the results are not as good.

Chill until…chilled.

That’s it. Very simple.

I spent some time thinking about Jesus today. This is his day. Why aren’t we excited about that?

If he had not come down from heaven and endured life in this miserable place for our sake, we would all be going to hell. Heaven was the first Christmas gift. What greater gift is there than eternal salvation in the presence of God and people you love?

I turned on a long Youtube of old Christmas songs. I did not have to deal with any wokeness. I did not have to hear anyone rap about Santa Claus. I didn’t have an elf on my shelf. I didn’t have to sit at a table with vegan killjoys or angry same-sex couples with multicolored hair and vape pens next to their plates. No one lectured me about Christmas being a patriarchal white supremacist holiday. It felt a little bit like Christmas Eve at my grandfather’s house in the 1970’s.

My uncle used to cook a rib roast and potatoes au gratin for everyone, and that’s why I like to do it now.

I say I made potatoes au gratin “sort of” because real potatoes au gratin isn’t really a great dish. I made something a little more like macaroni and cheese with potatoes instead of macaroni.

Next year, I’ll be doing this with my wife, and I hope to have a bunch of guests, as I often have in the past.

Merry Christmas, everybody. I hope you’re with family or friends you love, but even if you’re not, someone loves you, and you can still have the biggest gift of all.

One More Place to Experience Rejection

I hate social media, but I joined Reddit so I could get some help with Starlink. Since then, I have asked a few things about other topics. It’s not always easy to find a forum where you can get information, and Reddit has a lot of specialized groups.

I found out Reddit has a “karma” system, which is offensive, of course, to people who are not Hindus and do not want to be dragged into the Hindu religion. It’s amazing how Hinduism has somehow escaped being labeled a religion. You can talk about karma and do yoga all day and not be accused of promoting a religion when, of course, you are.

Imagine what would happen if Reddit gave people holy points and damnation points and said comments made Jesus smile.

Reddit karma is a social credit system. If people like something you say, they give you a karma point. If not, they give you a negative karma point. If you get enough positive points, you get the privilege of starting groups. If you get enough bad points, your stuff may be put where it’s harder to find, and Reddit has shadowbanning, although I’m not sure if karma is involved in that.

So basically, it’s a system that allows other people to persecute you anonymously. As a result, you feel pressured to say things that make people happy by reinforcing what you perceive to be the existing majority opinion. It pushes you to keep useful information they won’t like to yourself. It makes healthy dissent wither and fosters the overgrowth of disinformation. So it’s a lot like Twitter. And Facebook.

Reddit has confirmed some of my prejudices.

The sad thing about prejudice is that it is usually reinforced by experience. It works, except when a prejudice is based on irrational feelings. Prejudice is generally based on years of observation. It really is a bad idea to go to black neighborhoods at night. It’s a bad idea to start a big STEM company and insist all the engineers be female. It really is dangerous to drive in China.

One of my prejudices is that lots of Internet cooking people are jerks. Boy, did Reddit confirm this. In a food group, said it was a shame known outlets published bad recipes, which it is, and three guttersnipes voted me down without being man enough to say anything.

I don’t know why food people are so hateful, but they really are. The nastiest Internet troll I ever saw, which is saying a great deal, was a food guy who called himself Sheldon Martin. His email address was penmart10@aol.com. I still remember that address, because the things he said were so foul. You can probably find his old postings online. Search for “penmart10@aol.com” and “prolapse.”

I just found some of his material. Take a look at this really mild example.

I won’t dispute your knowlege of pottery, although I seriously doubt it’s been more than remedial, probably an ugly ash tray you once made during a therapy session in a mental institution, but I know with absolute positive certainty you ain’t any kind of cook, ‘specially not a baker.

Some guy disagreed with him, politely, about pizza stones. A lot of his stuff was extremely filthy.

Another valid prejudice: there is no way to deal with Musk fans without facing a wall of insanity. There are people who will praise Tesla and Starlink no matter what. If Starlink satellites went nuts and started shooting gigawatt lasers down into daycare centers, the Muskhive would lunge at the throats of anyone who complained.

I pointed out some bad things Starlink had done, and I got whacked with Hindu demerits. There went my chances of going to Internet Nirvana and getting high with Steve Jobs.

It reminds me of communism. Communists tell people to rat on their neighbors anonymously. They tell kids to do this to their parents, and some do.

I could not resist trying to game the system. I went to a couple of areas and made some comments I knew people would love, and now I have overwhelming credit in the eyes of Krishna Berners-Lee or whatever.

It’s pretty stupid, and it shows how Satan is using the Internet to brainwash us into conformity. I guess I’ll delete my account and start a new one if I ever need Reddit again.

Hack Chef Bests Pros Again

My wife loves creme brulee, so I decided to try to make it. It came out fine, but I learned a few things later.

I used the New York Times recipe, which you can find online. I’ll give the ingredient list.

2 cups heavy or light cream, or half-and-half
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
½ cup sugar, more for topping

It doesn’t take a genius. Beat the eggs and sugar together. Forget the bean unless you’re a cork-sniffer. Combine with the cream and salt. Cook. Sprinkle the top with sugar and burn it with a torch.

Now I’ll add my criticisms.

The NYT says to cook at 325°, which is stupid. I did it, and the top of the custard came out with a brown skin. I made some more at 275°, and they looked perfect. Do not cook at 325°. I’m not recommending 275° either, though. See below.

Why do professional cooks publish dumb recipes? So frustrating. Whoever wrote this recipe must have tried it, and if they did, they saw that brown skin. Then they published it anyway.

The NYT says to use a water bath, as you would when making flan. I did this, but it sounded stupid to me. I checked around, and I found a French chef who worked at Le Cirque, saying to cook at 205°. He says to use shallow dishes at a low temperature. A bath is used to prevent uneven heating and curdling, and these things don’t happen with shallow dishes at low temperatures. I plan to take his advice.

My guess is that the high temperature recommendation comes from restaurants where they have to get things done fast. In your home, it doesn’t matter if creme brulee takes a while, so you can do it right.

A lot of recipes say creme brulee should be between 1″ and 2″ deep. This sounds stupid to me. I have had wonderful creme brulee in restaurants, and it was never that deep. If it’s too deep, it overpowers the caramel. The French guy says to keep it shallow so it will cook evenly. I say go for 3/4″.

If restaurants have served me creme brulee in shallow dishes, then clearly, they did not use water baths. It’s nearly impossible to create a big water bath for a whole bunch of shallow dishes and not have water get into everything. Why doesn’t the NYT’s writer know this? Probably does and did not care.

People who publish about food generally care about delivering content and getting checks more than helping people. It reminds me of something Sergei Rachmaninoff said. Someone asked him what one of his pieces was about, and he said something like, “Two hundred dollars.”

I have never been to cooking school, I have never made creme brulee before, and I have already corrected the NYT recipe very substantially. What does that tell you about their standards?

The NYT says to beat the eggs and sugar until they are light. Again, stupid. My creme brulee was nice, but it was too light. Not everything should be light.

Creme brulee has to have a little weight to it. Next time, I will just mix until the sugar dissolves.

Apart from being lighter than I liked, the texture of my creme brulee was flawless. More than I can say for the lumpy creme brulee at Lawry’s in Singapore.

I believe the recipe uses too little egg yolk, too little vanilla, and not enough sugar. Next time, I will use 5/8 cup sugar, 6 yolks, and 1.5 tsp. vanilla.

This recipe makes a ton of creme brulee, by the way. Too much for a normal creme brulee set of 6 dishes. I suggest halving it or even quartering it. I have eaten 6 creme brulees today, and I still have a giant overflow creme brulee in the laundry room fridge.

I used fake vanilla. Taste tests show that most people prefer it to expensive vanilla. I am fooling with it to see what I think. The price difference is unreal.

Fake vanilla supposedly comes from glands on a beaver’s crotch, so that’s the down side. Try not to think about it.

Beaver glands. In your food. Put it out of your mind.

Oh, wait.

WARNING! BLOG POST CONTAINS DISGUSTING INFORMATION ABOUT FOOD YOU EAT. READ WITH CAUTION.

There; that fixed it.

What about burning the sugar? I used a Bernzomatic TS8000, which turns out to be exactly what chefs recommend. I found it clumsy, though. I may get a small butane torch or do what the French guy says to do. He likes to use a heated cast iron disk. I found you can’t pour caramel onto creme brulee from a saucepan. I tried, and you get too much caramel.

Amazon sells creme brulee kits, which are pans with racks that hold little, narrow ramekins in a water bath. Stupid. The ramekins are too narrow, and I don’t want a water bath. I found 8-ounce ceramic dishes about like the ones at Ruth’s Chris. There are a lot of creme brulee dishes out there that hold 4 ounces or 6 ounces. Be real. Nobody wants less than a cup of creme brulee.

Creme brulee is easy, especially if you do it the French way and not the hard way. I guess I’ll make it again tomorrow, confirm that my way is perfect, and then file it away for the future when my wife is here.

Lions are Supposed to Have Teeth

I have an audio Bible among the files in my car’s stereo, and I keep it on all the time when I drive. I used to listen to different kinds of music, but over time, I moved to Christian music, and now I just listen to the King James. It bothers me to turn it off. Sometimes my friend Mike has turned it off while riding in my car. I told him to stop doing that. We would be riding along, and suddenly I would notice that the atmosphere in the car was wrong, and I would realize the Bible was gone. I didn’t like it.

I almost never select books or chapters because Ford’s system for doing that is useless. Whatever plays, plays. Yesterday it was 1 Samuel, which contains the stories of Samuel and Saul.

I made a Youtube video yesterday, and in it, I discussed the fact that Christians who are failures are often able to exercise divine gifts and authority. It’s very strange. My last pastor, Albert Santiago, was an unrepentant, active child rapist, but he cast a demon out of me, and sometimes God spoke through him. In the video, I mentioned Saul, who prophesied even after God cursed his kingdom.

It was later that I went on an errand and heard 1 Samuel.

I mention Santiago’s name a lot because men who rape little girls should not have cover. Secrecy let him put a little girl in his bed over and over, and honesty might have protected her and whoever else he has raped. Maybe someone will be spared in the future because I’ve spoken or written his name. He should have been executed.

Saul was actually a great guy when his story started. He was taller and better-looking than other men, but he was humble, and he wanted to please God. The corruption that ruined him came on over time.

Early on, Saul heard a story about an Ammonite named Nahash who planned to commit an atrocity against Israel. According to extrabiblical sources, he had a practice of gouging out the right eyes of the men he defeated, and he had done this to every Jewish man in the area where he did his conquering.

Nahash came against Jews in a place called Jabesh-Gilead. They agreed to submit, but that didn’t satisfy him. He told them he would let them live only if they agreed to let him gouge their eyes out. They asked for a week to think about it, and they contacted Saul.

Here is the interesting part: when Saul heard about it, he became very angry, and the reason he was angry is that the Holy Spirit was upon him. So the Holy Spirit himself made him angry. God, who is love, and who loves forgiveness, made Saul angry. Saul got the Hebrews together and defeated Nahash, and this involved killing a lot of people. For God.

I found this interesting, because anger is one of my big concerns. I always think about the way I felt when Jesus visited me. Love poured through me like microwaves heating up a turkey breast. I have concerns that anger at other people comes from self-righteousness, fear, and lack of empathy, so I always ask God to send his love through me. I question people who seem to be hooked on what they call “righteous anger.” I generally feel that they are using God to justify something that comes from another source.

I had a friend who seemed to be angry all the time. He was very proud of work he claimed to be doing for God. He wanted to be praised for it. He got angry at me because here on my blog, I said God was not interested in our hard work and wanted to do things for us. After I wrote those things, he vanished from my life, and since then, he has had a lot of problems.

It turned out he had filled people with tall tales about his adventures and abilities and grand plans. Most of it was just hot air. He said he was building a strange Christian compound with a hurricane-proof house and a big workshop. He was known for offering people jobs. He suggested I could be his in-house attorney. His projects never panned out, though.

He told me something weird. He held himself out as some sort of nuclear engineer. He said he had designed an atomic bomb in high school, and that a state university had admitted him purely on that basis. I believed it because I had no reason not to. Some people really are nuclear engineers.

Later on, though, he admitted he couldn’t do math. You can’t design or even understand an atom bomb without math, and you definitely can’t participate in an undergrad engineering program. It’s like joining the Bolshoi when you can’t walk. No university anywhere is going to let you study engineering if you haven’t done calculus in high school.

He was never an engineer. I don’t know whether he has a college degree.

Knowing I was a physicist, he once tried to give me the idea he knew more than I did about a hand-waving calculation I had done to determine roughly how many bombs could be made from the uranium ore Saddam Hussein had. He said I was pretty close.

It was an informal Chicago-piano-tuners estimate, and I figured a nuclear engineer would know more than I did. I have not been trained to build nuclear bombs.

In retrospect, I suppose he just made up a number. He lacked the mental tools to do a calculation, but he wanted me to admire him and think he was part of the STEM gang, so he said what he said.

The fact that he told me he couldn’t do math shows that he didn’t really take engineering courses, because even a failed engineer would know that a physicist would know an engineering student has to know a lot of math. He slipped up.

He got in trouble for asking a huge, reputable company to move a ship for him. He held himself out as a successful entrepreneur when his company didn’t really have much in the way of assets or income. The company later sued him and won. They claimed they had lost nearly $800,000 preparing to do the job for him. They got a default judgment because he couldn’t afford an attorney.

Since then, he has had bypass surgery, his projects have failed to go anywhere, and I don’t think anyone would call him conspicuously blessed.

The ship was abandoned and broken up for scrap.

The story of the lawsuit is on the web, so it’s not exactly a secret.

I tried to get him to pray in tongues and basically fuel up with God, but I don’t think he ever did it. He once said, as an admission, that he was living on other people’s prayers, which is not really possible. He was way too busy for his own good.

He used to get very angry at preachers and other Christians, and he defended it. I thought he was wrong to justify his anger all the time. I felt God had used him to caution me about anger. Maybe I went too far in the direction of conciliation, though. Maybe I am fighting to suppress anger that comes from God. I am not sure.

In case anyone is wondering, while I do have the typical human desire to conceal my faults and failures, and while I have not revealed every disappointing thing about me, I am pretty much what I say I am. I do have a law degree and a physics degree. I did spend two and a half years in graduate school in physics, and I quit because I was burned out, not because I could not do the work. Although you could say I couldn’t do the work because I was burned out. You need enthusiasm to get up every day and do 6 or more hours of advanced math problems.

I was enrolled in classes when I quit, and I began trading stocks, which did not work out because it was a dumb idea.

I really did score over 150 on a battery of IQ tests, except for one where I got 142, but I give myself an asterisk for that one, because the lady who was giving the test didn’t tell me it was timed until I was way into it, and we were having a pleasant and engaging conversation while I worked. I got a perfect score on the something-or-other reading test, which impressed the lady.

The tests did not define scores above 150, so I do not have a number. Just “150+.” I have the papers somewhere to prove it. Many people are smarter than I am. I feel like I’m smart enough.

I haven’t done extraordinarily well on math tests. I got a 690 on the math SAT back before they dumbed it down. I have a history of locking up mentally on math tests, though. For some reason, I have aced practice tests and then choked when doing the real thing. I used to get perfect scores on practice quantitative GRE tests, but I got a 730 when I took the exam.

I have said I used to bench press 300 pounds easily, and this is true, but I did it on a machine, which I always point out. I also add that when I tried 220 on a real bar, I succeeded, but it was a lot harder. Machines don’t develop muscles used to balance things, and they let you put a lot more strength into movement. I maxed out most machines I used, but I didn’t impress anyone on the leg machines or the curl machine.

I wrote an article about training as a boxer, and the editor of the magazine I wrote it for didn’t believe me when I wrote that I used to do 25 one-armed pushups per side, with my feet on a chair, while working out, but I really did. I was able to do 30 or more, but I was not willing to keep going. I did 5 in his office, easily, quite some time after I had stopped exercising regularly. I know he and everyone else in the office had been talking about it and questioning my honesty, because when we came out, he announced, “He did 5.”

I think I could do one regular pushup right now if the floor was red hot and the reward was a pizza.

I did hit very, very hard as a boxer. I didn’t make that up when I said so. People who held pads for me were startled. Their eyes opened wide when I punched. I was not a good boxer, though. I did not train long enough because I got an injury, and for all I know, I would never have become any good. I didn’t skip rope well.

I practiced law successfully. I was very good at it. It was not hard for me at all. I quit to take up writing. Three books I wrote were published by a real publisher, even if they were stupid and did not make money. I chose not to return to law because I felt sure God was telling me to knock it off. I started applying to firms and doing interviews, but I quit. I did not fail. I made a choice. I was working when I decided to quit.

I really do live on a farm where I have a lot of tools and things. I built every single thing I have said I built. I really did marry a woman from Africa last year, and we did go to foreign countries to be together. When I say we are financially okay, I am not lying. I am not planning to run off to the Bahamas to get away from a pile of Mastercard debt.

I do make the best pizza and cheesecake on Earth, as far as I know. I am not lying about those things.

I have not accomplished anything in the way of a real career, what I have is mostly inherited, and I am no one to be admired, but anything I tell you I can do, I can do. I don’t make claims I can’t back up in order to impress strangers. I would be afraid of being exposed. I am not overly burdened with a craving for admiration, although I do have some desire, and I have never had much in the way of ambition.

I’m not building a big compound, and I am not going to offer anyone a job.

Now you know some good things about me, and some bad things.

Recently I wrote about an aunt who has extreme problems with insecurity. She is so hungry to be admired, it may amount to a mental illness. She has made wild, dishonest claims about her children which ended up embarrassing them; you would think she was talking about Niels Bohr and Queen Elizabeth the First. I like being admired, but I can’t imagine throwing everything else away for it.

The problem my aunt has is made even sadder by the fact that everyone knows about it. No one who knows her admires her. The things she says to gain admiration have led every one of her relatives who is still involved in her life to look down on her. They express their contempt and laugh behind her back. I guess that’s what usually happens to such people.

If she didn’t lie about her kids, people might be somewhat impressed, or at least not disillusioned, when they get to know them. Instead, people find them disappointing.

Spud Webb looks pretty good unless you’re expecting Wilt Chamberlain.

I don’t really understand narcissism, which is a root of ambition. I think you have to have a lot of ambition in order to understand ambitious people. I’ve read about men who drove themselves like slaves for years, not because they loved what they were doing, but because they wanted admiration and sex. Pete Townshend has said he became a guitarist just to get girls. I can’t grasp that mindset. I won’t even pretend I like a woman for 10 minutes to get sex! That’s too much to ask.

I don’t understand what drives Donald Trump. He was a great president, but he has done a lot of stupid things. He commits adultery with about as much hesitance as I have when I throw aluminum cans in the regular trash. He doesn’t think about his wives or kids when he cheats. He has completely neglected his children’s moral and religious educations in order to make himself rich and sexually busy. And he’s pretty typical of driven men.

I can get excited about making money for about 36 hours. After that, it wears off. I can get excited about promoting myself for about 15 minutes.

I am naturally lazy. I have told plenty of lies in my time. I am not brave. I fry chicken badly.

I think it’s better to surprise people by being better than they expect than to fail and hand them transparent excuses that make them look even worse.

I think about JFK sometimes. Democrats like to say he read 1200 words per minute, but in reality, he and a leftist journalist discussed false figures to put in a story, and JFK picked 1200 to impress them. Look it up. He was that dishonest, not to mention insecure.

He was just a fairly smart guy with a crooked family and a dishonest press establishment that backed him up. He would have been humiliated if someone had given him something to read in a short time and then made him take a test.

The other day I read that Jennifer Lawrence graduated from high school and entered college at 16. People repeat this myth. She never graduated from junior high. JUNIOR. She is out there lecturing high school graduates about how to fix the world, though.

The late Brian Dennehy lied and claimed he was a combat vet. Now it’s on his Wikipedia page forever.

A magazine said Benjamin Netanyahu had an IQ of 180. Turns out it’s not true. They recanted. But the myth is still out there. He’s a very impressive man anyway.

Radio psychology guru Dr. Laura Schlesinger is a doctor of nutrition or something. Qualified to work in a health food store, I guess. No, I’m wrong. Her doctorate is in physiology, says the web. Not psychology or medicine. So why behave like a psychologist and call yourself a doctor? I’m a doctor of law. I can literally call myself a doctor, and no one can contradict me. Should I get a radio show about medicine and bill myself as Dr. Steve?

Someone once told me that Menachem Schneerson, the rabbi some Jews thought would be the Messiah, was off-the-charts brilliant, and that he had stunned people as an engineering student at the Sorbonne. Not true. While he may have excelled at his religious studies, he had an ordinary EE diploma from the Ecole Speciale des Travaux Publiques, which is not part of the Sorbonne and is known for civil engineering, not electrical engineering. He was no Tesla. Maybe I shouldn’t mention Tesla in this context, because Nikola Tesla hated Jews.

Tesla himself, who truly did change the world with the AC motor and radio, both of which would been invented soon with or without him, has been overrated. A biography says he was 6’6″ tall, but he was really 4 inches shorter. People think he invented all sorts of currently-incomprehensible technology which will one day change the world, but that’s not true. We already have everything he invented, and some of his ideas didn’t work. He said he would prove relativity wrong and put Einstein, a Jew, in his place. That claim aged poorly.

Bill Nye calls himself the Science guy, but he’s an engineer with a bachelor’s degree.

I frequently feel annoyed at Massad Ayoob, a fading magazine writer who has a rabid following of uneducated gun nuts. Around half a century ago, he started publishing fairly useful books about self-defense, but he has made himself out to be things he is not.

He has no military background. He is not an engineer or gun designer. He has no scientific training. He has no legal training. He was a part-time cop in a microscopic all-white New Hampshire town with almost no crime, and he has never used a gun anywhere but the range. But he likes to give people the impression he’s Wyatt Earp crossed with Audie Murphy, John Moses Browning, and Gerry Spence.

He has worked as an expert witness, which a plumber or dentist could do, and which in no way qualifies him to talk about the law. He lies about his experiences in this line of work. He has argued publicly with some of the world’s greatest wound experts. He puts up Youtube videos in which he gives people legal advice which could put them in prison or execution chambers. Why not just bill yourself as a pretty good writer and competitive pistol shooter? Isn’t that enough?

Lance Armstrong’s whole life is a lie. I wonder who was really the best cyclist in the world all those years. Probably someone who ended up working in a bike shop.

It’s always irksome to read about overrated people with padded resumes. There have been people like Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and John von Neumann, who have lived up to and beyond their hype, and it’s a shame to put liars on their level.

To get back on track, a guy from Scotland has a Youtube channel nearly no one watches. His name is Gordon. I watch every video he makes. He hears from God. There is no doubt about it.

Today Gordon put up a new video, and he linked it to an older video.

In the new video, he talked about 1 Samuel and the way God made Saul angry. It made an impression on him this week, just as it did me. I was shocked to see him talking about these things exactly when I was thinking about them.

The earlier video was made when coronavirus had churches locked down. In that video, Gordon was somewhat angry with lukewarm Christians in big, complacent churches. He was a little derisive. He laughed. In today’s video, he gave some background information.

The first video was made after he had a vision. He was praying, and he started walking in circles, talking about Jericho and bringing Rahab out and destroying the walls. He then saw a woman on her knees with her hands up, as though chains had just come off. He saw a tower that had fallen around her. He passed out and then found himself on his couch, groggy and unable to get it together.

He made the derisive video while he was still under the effects of the vision, and the words he said in it were prophecy, not his own words.

The big message here is that sometimes God wants you to be angry and critical. These things are not off limits. God can give you commands, words, and feelings that make you uncomfortable because they put you outside a Christian’s normal ranges.

This makes sense, because if there is one thing Satan’s children love, it’s shaming us for being critical and angry. They ignore Christian charity and the inestimable number of things we do for others, and they focus on the small amount of time we spend in anger and correction. They tell us we are not allowed to be angry or give correction. They want to pull our teeth.

It’s ridiculous, how non-Christians are always giving us Christianity lessons. I don’t teach people how to be good at sodomy or smoking weed.

Gordon says church has to be different now because we are at war. That is true. I keep saying the time for cajoling and stroking is over. The ship is sinking fast, so patience has to be redefined.

I believe this is an area where you have to use caution and rely on tongues. If you rely on tongues, you will be guided, and the things you do will be God’s will and not your own, so you will not go off into anger and criticism that come from Satan.

I was amazed that Gordon and I had the same thing on our mind on the same day.

Now I have something new to pray about.

The Only Acceptance That Helps is Acceptance of Rejection

I heard something surprising today in a video by Mark Hemans. He said he rarely goes to church.

Hemans is a healer who goes around prophesying and delivering people. A lot of his videos are shot in churches. So how can he say he doesn’t go to church?

He said his small grandson was with him recently, and they were walking to a hotel where Hemans was going to have a meeting. The grandson said the hotel was where “church” would be that night. The point of the story is to show that “church” is any place where people get together with God.

It looks like Hemans is trying to say he doesn’t go to church buildings for regular services. I don’t, either. But we are still part of the body. I haven’t been inside a church for maybe two years, but I’m not excommunicated, estranged, defrocked, or whatever. I’m as legitimate as any Christian.

The word “church” is a translation of a Greek word that referred generally to any group of people who belonged to God. It doesn’t mean an organization, building, or denomination. If you have 10 people over for prayer, you are literally in church in your own house. It’s not an imitation of church. It’s not an unauthorized church. It’s not a lower grade of church. It’s plain old church; legitimate and fully accredited with God.

Yes, you can have a real church without TV cameras. Hard to believe, I know.

In the same sermon, he talked a lot about getting impediments out of your life. As I listened, I felt like I was hearing myself. God tells everyone exactly the same things, so if you hear from him, and you listen to other people who hear from him, you will get confirmation of things you have already been told. My wife confirms such things to me every day.

He said it was important to get cursed objects out of our houses. Boy, do I agree. I threw out thousands of dollars’ worth of Cuban cigars. I threw out thousands of dollars’ worth of CD’s and vinyl. I threw out my dad’s Masonic garbage. I threw out heirlooms. I burned another religion’s scripture. I tore Rick Warren’s terrible, destructive book in half and threw it out so no one else would be hurt by it.

Unforgiveness and a desire to get reparations are like cursed objects. You have to dump them if you want to move on. It’s important to get used to being better to other people than they are to you.

He criticizes tattoos. Christians get really mad about this. They get gaudy tattoos of crosses, Hebrew words, and scriptures, and they claim God loves it.

God hates tattoos. They come from pagan cultures. American Indians, Africans, and Polynesians worship the devil, and along with other toxic cultures, they brought us tattooing. Post-Christian Europe doesn’t have much of a tattooing tradition. Apparently, once Europeans turned to God, they had more sense than to stain themselves. Tattoos are Satan’s parodies of torah verses written on animal skins.

Look up the history of tattooing. It’s about demon worship. It comes from religion, not the arts. Yoga is religion, not exercise, and tattoos are based in religion, not art. Many martial arts are religions. I had a karate instructor tell me I had to bow and make gestures when I entered his studio. A lot of things that come from exotic cultures are evil.

I’ve seen Hemans tell people the demons that were ruining their lives came in through tattoos.

Honoring God with a tattoo is like honoring him with a bong shaped like a cross.

I have no use for tattooed hipster preachers. First of all, hipsters are appeasers. They want to be cool, which is an undeniable symptom of the spirit of antichrist. If the spirit of antichrist has so much power over you he can make you turn yourself into a circus freak, the Holy Spirit is not dominant in you. He would never agree. Second, they have no knowledge. If you don’t know tattoos are bad, you are definitely wrong about a lot of other things, so I shouldn’t let you teach me.

Seems like tattoo preachers are always proud. They want people to admire them, not God. Why else would a person spend thousands of dollars decorating himself like a pagan prostitute, especially if he has a family to support?

Hemans says some people should get rid of TV and social media. He has a Facebook account, but he’s not using it to share stupid memes, read political indoctrination, or gossip. He quit using it for worldly things. He just informs people about his meetings and so on. He says he got a revelation that he should quit looking at the news, too.

I agree with all these things. In about 2015, I underwent what I call “the little rapture.” I quit Facebook and the other social diseases…I mean ministries…and I felt a whole lot better. I rarely expose myself to secular entertainment or even Christian entertainment, which is often the same thing. I think I need to keep looking for things to get rid of.

People are so ignorant and arrogant; it’s discouraging. You write about separating yourself from Satan’s world, and they call you a legalist. They have no idea what legalism is, but they’re sure that anyone who tells them to stop doing anything is a legalist.

Legalism is about substituting a game with a point system for a relationship with the Holy Spirit, who is God. You rack up points by doing things you think are good, and you avoid demerits by obeying rules that tell you not to do other things. God adds up the points, and if you score high enough, you get into heaven. Legalism is about pride. It’s about presenting God with a bill. “I did this, so you owe me help and salvation.” Job was a legalist until God corrected him.

Telling people not to do stupid things is not legalism. If I tell you not to walk through a minefield, it’s not legalism. Cursed objects, tattoos, and social sites are land mines. They give evil spirits access to you and your family.

My mother told me not to smoke. It was a rule she made. I obeyed it. My sister started smoking practically in the crib, and she got lung cancer. Was my mother being legalistic?

I wish she had made more rules, but she was a neglectful mother. I hate to say it, because I am used to idealizing her. It’s true. On the one hand, she loved me more than she loved herself, and she was extremely generous with me and she took care of me, but on the other, she and my dad didn’t teach me very much, and the neglect wrecked my life.

Hemans also talked about adopting the culture of heaven. I’ve been talking about this a lot this month. You can read things I’ve written about it recently. God really does tell us all the same things. The problem is that we reject speaking in tongues, so he doesn’t get many opportunities to talk to us. The ones who listen learn a lot, and when they try to share it, the others try to kill them.

Sooner or later, I will see some preacher somewhere telling people something else God told me: the rapture is not just a one-time event; it’s a process. God is not going to come down and pull you off the top of a whore. He’s not going to pull naked men out of a bathhouse. He’s not going to lift Christians out of yoga studios or Antifa meetings because at some point in the past they raised their hands for 15 seconds while watching Joel Osteen. He’s going to take people who are already sick of this place, not the ones who love it.

The Bible says God gives people the desires of their hearts. This isn’t just true for Christians. People who desire to be left alone by God will get their wish.

“He who loves his life will lose it.” This verse doesn’t mean you should be suicidal. It means you should love heaven and hate the culture of Earth. How can anyone question this? Jesus says Satan is the god of this world. How can you be conformed to God’s nature and not hate the culture of a world Satan rules? It’s not possible.

If you want to be taken in the rapture, you have to be ready to go. By the time Jesus comes, you should have gotten sick of TV, popular music, the culture of the Internet, drugs, drunkenness, lewdness, vengefulness, ostentation, pride, greed, leftism, feminism, and all the other nasty things worldly people love.

When I felt I needed to turn back to God, I resisted because I was afraid I’d become a fanatic again. In reality, fanaticism is the best thing that happened to me. It saved me and freed me from people and situations that made me miserable. The Bible says to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength. How is that not extreme?

I’m very glad to see someone confirm the things I’ve been told. I wish there was a way to convince more people to tap into the information pipeline. We could be much more helpful to each other.

Be Absent-Minded and Be Your Own Secret Santa

Should you buy yourself Christmas presents?

When I got out of law school, I was a disgrace. I only owned one pistol! It’s embarrassing to admit it. I owned a Glock I bought in case I had to kill one of my sister’s friends. This is true. I’m not trying to be funny.

She was enraged about something I did to help her, so she threatened to send some male junkie friends to take care of me. I got myself a Glock 22 and put my worries behind me. Fortunately for her low-life friends, none of them ever showed up to test my marksmanship, and I never had to go through the trauma of putting bullets into a human being. After that buy, I let myself down by letting maybe 9 years pass without another pistol purchase.

A Glock 22 is not a .22, by the way.

When I left school, I got myself a graduation gift. I went to Garcia’s National Gun in Little Havana and picked up a Smith & Wesson 686+ 7-shot, 6″ revolver in .357 Magnum. Very nice. Satin stainless with Hogue grips.

I frequented Garcia’s because I had bought into the myth that one should support local gun dealers. I bought several more guns from this place, and every time I showed up, they treated me like a stranger, perhaps because I wasn’t a Cuban. After that, I learned to love Internet shopping.

Yelp says Garcia’s is gone, which is not a surprise. Here is a quotation from a review a lady wrote:

“If you are not a 50+ year old Cuban guy you are invisible to these people. Terrible service. They treat you like you’re not there to spend money. I will take my business elsewhere.”

That is exactly how I felt. I would stand in the store while they talked to their pals en espanol, waiting to for my existence to be noticed so I could give them $700 or $1300 or whatever. It looks like their customer base decided to say, “Hasta la vista, baby.”

I think the revolver is the only present I’ve ever bought myself. I have certainly bought things for myself, but I don’t think I’ve bought myself anything for a special occasion.

Actually, I just remembered one, so I’m wrong. I bought a 2003 Ford Thunderbird and took delivery the day after my birthday. It was a silly, frivolous car, but I really enjoyed it.

I guess that counts. Sort of. I mean, I had to buy some kind of car, and I would have done it even if it had been during a different month.

Okay. It doesn’t count

Rhodah and I went to Singapore recently, and of course, I bought her stuff. She is still catching up from a lifetime of poverty. We bought clothes. We bought a nice Bric’s suitcase. There were other things. She managed to squeeze a big perfume donation out of me while she was on her way to her flight and the duty-free shops.

During our trip, I got myself a Singapore ball cap in the Bugis Street bazaar, and I also got a Levi’s-brand belt because I left my own belt in Florida. The belt does not count. In the airport on the way home, I realized I had nearly nothing to show for my trip, so I spent 22 USD on a Singapore shirt.

In Ireland, I got myself a Dublin hoodie I will never wear. I would have gotten a T-shirt, but the Irish sell incredibly cheap shirts that can’t possibly last a year. In Turkey, I got a hat. In Egypt, nothing.

It’s hard to buy anything in Egypt that is not related to idolatry.

Egypt is not the greatest tourist destination. If you go, stay in a very nice hotel in Cairo and get guides to take you to the sights. Then take a Nile cruise with guides. Then go home. You won’t be able to drive, and there is nothing to do except look at pyramids and temples anyway. See the old stuff and enjoy a cruise. If you limit your trip to these things, you’ll love Egypt. Don’t do anything else.

I feel like getting myself something, but I am not doing well at finding gifts for myself.

When I got the idea of getting myself a present, I immediately thought of a trailer with a gas-powered leaf vacuum on it. That is not a Christmas gift. It’s a tool for yard maintenance. A CNC mill I don’t need would be a good gift. Something I really need so I can do chores would not.

I’m not blowing $8000 on a mill.

I looked at my Amazon lists. They’re full of things I need. There are also things I merely want, but those things are too cheap for Christmas.

I bought myself two Shark vacuums this month. Cordless and corded. Spent over $600. Changed my life. Absolutely worth every penny. Recommended without reservation. But cleaning tools are not gifts. And Rhodah will probably be the one who uses them most.

I feel like I’ve turned into the aunt who used to give me socks.

How about another firearm buy?

The other day I was on the phone, and I saw an unopened flat rate box. I opened it up, and it contained a new Wilson rifle cartridge trimmer. The invoice was from August of 2020. This thing cost me over $130, and I had forgotten I owned it. Obviously, I have not used it. I haven’t fired a gun in maybe 6 months. I have enough ammo supplies backed up to keep me busy for a couple of months. I built a rifle I have not fired yet. I finished it months ago. I probably have 15,000 rounds of .22 ammunition. I don’t think this is the time to buy gun stuff.

Maybe a nice bottle of XO brandy. I barely drink, but a really nice brandy would be pleasant to have on hand. I have not had a really good brandy since before I left Miami.

How about a water-cooled TIG torch? Practicing TIG is no fun when you’re holding a hot torch. A new one would cost a few pennies, but it would encourage me to practice.

I would love to have a Langmuir Arcflat welding table, three feet by four feet. My Northern Tool table is astounding for the money, but it has about half the square footage of a Langmuir. I’m doing a project which is not going to fit on my table. It would hang off the ends and sides of a Langmuir, but I think I could make it work.

It would be great to have a table 6 feet long. You can weld nearly anything on a table like that.

A Langmuir fixturing table 4 feet long would cost more than I want to spend, sadly. It would be $1800, including tax. Cut that figure in thirds, and I might do it.

Like a leaf vaccum, a welding table is useful for necessary jobs, but you can also use one to make fun things like a shooting bench or a mobile base for a big table saw you don’t really need. I don’t think I’d put it in the same class as a leaf vacuum.

I’m going to try to get by without a vacuum. Today I took my giant blower and made a 10-foot-wide pile of leaves at the side of the front yard. I plan to burn them as soon as I can get a permit. In the past, I was determined to move leaves out of the yard before burning them, and that’s why I never got anywhere. Moving them an eighth of a mile to the burn pile is extremely work-intensive. If I am willing to have a black spot in my yard, I should be able to get rid of them without extraordinary effort.

I guess I’ve already bought myself nearly everything that would make a good present. I have a drawer full of nice knives. I have a Ruger RPR with a Vortex Viper scope. I have an ice cream machine with its own compressor. I have a 16″ lathe. Years ago, I got myself musical instruments.

To some men, or women who have a lot of jewelry, this stuff may seem insignificant, especially when spread out over decades, but I don’t live on a grand scale. I drive a Ford Explorer with 60,000 miles on it, and I plan to keep it for 10 more years. I use a cell phone made in 2017. I own a Rolex, but if my late father had not owned it, I would not have one. If I spend $500 on something, I feel like it’s a big deal.

A home waterjet would be nice. Really nice. Let’s see. A Wazer, the best-known small waterjet, would only set me back maybe 12 grand.

Dang it.

How about a plasma table? Let’s see. Over $1500. Geez.

I may as well clean up the brandy snifters.

Trump NFT’s: I Miss Out on the Ground Floor Again

I know virtually nothing about nonfungible tokens, but I wish I had bought a Trump NFT this week. I think they’re hilarious.

If you haven’t heard about these tokens, it’s partly because the big announcement was made on Truth Social, where information goes to die.

For people with even less knowledge than I, if any exist, I will impart the few facts I know. An NFT is a piece of digital currency, so I suppose that means it only exists as a piece of code. A method of authenticating these things has been created, and I won’t tell you what it is because I don’t care enough to find out for myself. My understanding is that if you store your money in NFT’s, you can prevent the IRS from finding out you have it. I’m not sure, though.

I don’t like NFT’s because my feeling is that they can evaporate without notice, leaving you with FN, or fungible nothing.

Stocks can also evaporate, and the dollar can, too, except for dollars made of silver and gold. Most dollars have no physical existence. Only a tiny percentage have been turned into bills and coins. The rest are imaginary, stored as numbers in computers all over the world. I don’t see how that can work, but it’s the truth. The dollar can plummet, but I think it’s less likely to do so than an imaginary coin with a dog’s picture on it.

I don’t know how NFT offerings go. Based on my knowledge of the unfairness of the world, I would guess they go like stock offerings. In a stock offering, a company sells shares to the public, and brokerages see to it that only people who are already rich can buy them. Then the prices skyrocket overnight, and the rest of us get to come in, buy shares, and watch the prices collapse.

A quick scan of the web suggests that nearly all of the people who make money from NFT’s are the ones who create or sell them. That is exactly what I would have predicted. Completely consistent with my view of the world. So probably, there are a few thousand lucky consumers who got rich buying NFT’s before they became trendy, and now the only way to profit is to be in the creation and sales business. And the whole business is propped up by suckers who buy NFT’s that generally don’t work out.

By the time suckers find out about things that make money, the money has usually gotten a lot harder to make.

Sounds like the whole thing eventually becomes a Ponzi scheme.

I’ve probably already said things that aren’t correct, so I guess I’ll stop “explaining.”

This week, Donald Trump (PBUH) issued his own NFT, and it is making leftists boiling mad. Like they weren’t already. I Googled to try to find out what it was and where to get one, but it looks like the leftweb has ganged up to make this information very hard to find. Google “buy Trump NFT,” and believe it or not, you won’t get much useful input at all. If somebody were selling a Hunter Biden NFT or an NFT with Obama’s dog on it, similar Googling would produce useful results immediately, so I’m not sure what’s going on.

If Obama issued an NFT with a grainy picture of his butt on it, Google would be drowning in positive content, the NFT would be all over every news site, and news stories would tell people where to get them. TV shows would be full of segments about them, disguised as entertainment or news but intended to boost sales.

Instead of getting information about the NFT and where to get it, I was inundated with links and excerpts excoriating Trump, ridiculing his NFT, and insisting its release was a failure.

I didn’t see any stories about the tokens being “dangerous” or “violence,” but I’m sure they are out there. I’m sure there are people claiming they’ve sustained terrible emotional damage.

Conversing with the leftist world about Trump is like stabbing a rabid dog with a red-hot fork. You can’t even have a conversation about harmless facts.

Was the release a failure? Doesn’t look that way to me. The web admits the NFT’s sold out instantly, and sources suggest $230 is a typical price for an NFT that sold initially for $99. The cheapest ones I’m seeing run almost $500. Some of the tokens are unusual, and they have sold for $24,000. How is this a failure?

There are 45,000 Trumpcoins (“Trumpcoin”?) out there, and their value is probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It will probably increase, because Trump is a fleeting phenomenon, and people like me would love to have these NFT’s just to remember him.

If I bought a ton of manure sculpted into a bust of Joe Biden for $99 and sold it immediately for $230, I would be thrilled. If I bought Apple for $99 and sold it the next day for $230, I would be thrilled. Why would I feel bad about selling a $99 Trump token for $230?

After several minutes of Googling, I learned that there is a website called Opensea, and you can buy various NFT’s there. I took a look at it, and it appears to be a useless site for anyone who isn’t in the game already. The prices are listed in Ethereums. An Ethereum is an NFT, so how do I buy the Trump NFT or an Ethereum if I don’t already have an NFT? I assume there is some way around it, but I haven’t looked yet and probably won’t.

That’s some catch, that catch-22.

CNN says, “Donald Trump’s NFT superhero trading cards timed the market all wrong.” So a 130% profit is what you get in one day if you time the market wrong. Timing the market right must turn you into Jeff Bezos in a week.

The Washington Post says, “Trump NFTs are not art. Unless you consider grifting an art form.” That’s a weird comment. The cards feature a funny painting (digital or whatever) of Trump, defiantly facing the viewer. Some cards feature him in cowboy hats. Others show him in a sort of Iron Man suit. Who claimed this was serious art? I’m sure no one ever did. Even if it happened, who cares? The purpose of the issue isn’t to distribute digital art. It’s to make money.

Is the Dogecoin fine art? Was that the purpose? Is any NFT fine art? I know I’ve missed nearly all the memos, but selling anything digital as fine art makes no sense at all. What good is it for me to create and sell a digital Mona Lisa if you can copy it to your hard drive in a hundred-thousandth of a second and email a million copies around the world? Maybe those copies won’t be authorized, but any idiot will still be able to view them and use them as his Windows home screen.

Even if an NFT featuring art is collectible because it’s unique, the quality of the art is irrelevant. The scarcity is what makes it valuable.

Opensea features photos of available Trumpcoins. Can’t you just download those photos? Okay, they may not be high-resolution, but does that matter when you’re looking at a photo of a picture of Trump dressed like a Marvel character?

Here’s a Trumpcoin that just sold for 15 Ethere…ae? Ums? That’s nearly $18,000. Keith Olbermann must be under sedation today.

Why call it grifting? Grifting is fraud. Why is Trump’s NFT any more fraudulent than all the other NFT’s? They’re all digital Beanie Babies and tulip bulbs. People issue them because they know they can spend nearly nothing creating something collectors will snap up and turn into a valuable asset. The whole thing is based on a desire to make money, but how is it dishonest? Everyone knows how it works.

Rolling Stone, the stoner rag that still contends Hunter Thompson was a real journalist, which is about like claiming Charlie Sheen is a journalist, says, “‘I Can’t Watch This’: Even Die-Hard Trump Allies Think His NFTs Are Cringe.”

“Cringe” is not an adjective. Grow up. Don’t you have editors? As for Trump allies, he surrounded himself with a lot of opportunistic people of fragile loyalty, and they have been subjected to insane pressure to turn on him. Naturally, some of them have flipped. What about all the Trump allies who think the NFT is funny and harmless? Count me in that group, not that I make any effort to promote Trump these days.

This is Trump. He has always been a showman. He has always loved fun. He has always loved controversy. He likes money. What did people expect?

What really angers the leftists? Probably the knowledge that the NFT’s, which they can’t trace, tax, or take away, will be worth tons of money soon. They’ll probably go into the billions at some point, and Trump will get some of that. This retards the left’s berserk efforts to starve him and his children.

Surely Trump bought some of these things. He would have to be nuts not to.

If there is anyone who needs concealable assets and money to pay armed security, it’s the Trump family. American leftists are determined to do them the way their predecessors did Czar Nicholas II and his children.

Leftists lie awake every night, tormented by visions of an improbable 2024 Trump victory. Their 2024 campaign started on the day Biden won. They will not stop reviling this man and everything he is associated with, ever. They’ll probably slow down a little when he fails to get the nomination, but they will never quit. Mental illness doesn’t go away by itself.

Trump isn’t coming back. He will be too old to run, and the GOP will see to it that he isn’t nominated. They’re already working on it. People need to quit worrying about it. Personally, I want to see DeSantis run. He’s like Trump with most of the problems filtered out.

TDS comes from the spirit world. Satan sees Trump as a friend of the church and Israel, not to mention the unborn, so he stirs up the vulnerable people he can control. Reasonable dialogue will not change anything. If leftists were reasonable, they wouldn’t run around claiming disagreeing with them is violence. Lunacy has been mainstreamed.

It’s too late for me to get my own Trumpcoin, so I guess I’ll forget about it. They have no physical existence anyway, so I couldn’t display one on my workshop wall or otherwise enjoy it.

I hope they become insanely valuable. I hope they start selling for seven figures each. I hope Trump kept a thousand of the best ones for himself. Of course, I also hope God reaches him and his enemies and helps bring agreement in Him to whoever is willing to receive it.

More

An hour into my career as a crypto expert of global standing, I have already discovered a major flaw in my grasp of the topic. Evidently, an NFT is not the same thing as cryptocurrency.

It looks like Dogecoin, as an example, is just currency, whereas an NFT is a unique digital object, and you can pay for an NFT with cryptocurrency. So I guess NFT’s are digital Beanie Babies and cryptocurrencies are sort of like stocks that aren’t backed by companies with income and assets. So when you buy a digital coin, you’re buying stock in nothing.

In the case of Trumpcoin, the asset is the digital file representing the funny picture.

On the whole, I would say give me commercial real estate.

“A Trip Through a Sewer in a Glass-Bottomed Boat”

Ordinarily, I don’t watch secular entertainment, but the other day, I felt an urge to watch the movie Le Mans. This is a 1971 film starring Steve McQueen. He plays a race driver participating in the yearly 24-hour race. I could not rent this movie on Youtube, so first, I rented Grand Prix, a 1966 movie featuring James Garner. It’s about drivers going through a series on the famous Formula One circuit. The next day, I found Le Mans on Amazon Prime, so I watched it, too.

Last night, I started to watch The Front Page. This is a movie based on a play written by a couple of leftists. One, Ben Hecht, was a newspaperman before he wrote the play. The movie has been remade several times. I watched the 1931 version which is now in the public domain.

I felt it was okay with God for me to watch this stuff. I removed Amazon Prime from my TV afterward.

James Garner was a folksy, self-deprecating, appealing actor. On the other hand, he was also a fierce leftist who smoked dope all the time. He was also very litigious, and he got into a road rage fight in which a former Army Captain and Green Beret named Aubrey Williams put him in the hospital. Steve McQueen seems to have been less politically involved, but he smoked dope a lot, too, and he treated women very, very badly.

Garner’s fight may not have been his fault, but the stories don’t smell good, and his own accounts vary. The man who beat him up was a veteran with no criminal record, and he provided a pretty credible story. He said he walked up to Garner’s car after they got into a dispute while driving, and Garner grabbed his necklace and jerked it down, banging his head against the roof of Garner’s trademark Firebird and putting him in a bad position.

This is exactly the kind of dirty trick a smart aggressor might pull, and it’s not one I have heard of elsewhere, so I am skeptical of claims Williams made it up. If it were me, and I were inclined to lie, I would just say he opened his door into me, jumped out, and started swinging.

In one of his varying accounts, Garner admitted he pulled the necklace trick, so you have to wonder what to believe. He claimed he did it in self-defense.

Williams had his sister with him, she jumped in, and they put Garner on the ground and broke his tailbone. Later, Williams was convicted of a crime. Of course, juries are known to be gullible, and who would convict Jim Rockford in California?

Maybe Garner told the truth, but it sounds fishy. Williams was also accused of stealing gold chains from Garner, so that diminishes his own credibility.

Williams is black, so that may have factored into his conviction and the acceptance of Garner’s dubious account. Afterward, he kept it classy, believe it or not. He said, “I used to really like him. I didn’t even recognize him during this encounter. I didn’t realize he was involved until I read about it the next day.”

In 1964, Garner, an ardent environmentalist, approached and threatened a 65-year-old politician who was three inches shorter than he was. The disagreement was about a property that was going to be developed. Garner was about 44, and he was 6’3″ tall. The police had to step in and prevent a fight, or more likely, a one-sided beating. Nice people don’t beat up old men.

Today, at least in Florida, doing what Garner did is a felony.

There is something about Garner I just don’t like. I feel like something is not right. I don’t trust his reputation.

McQueen would probably win a poll for coolest actor of all time. He was the highest-paid actor of his day. Female co-stars practically begged him to have sex with them, and he often agreed. He had the ability to do some of the impressive things his characters did on screen. He was so good with a motorcycle, he did stunts for The Great Escape. They could have used stuntmen, but it was too hard to find people as skilled as he was. He actually had to be filmed on two motorcycles, as Army Air Forces pilot Hilts and as a Nazi, chasing himself. He was also a skilled car racer. He was a fairly serious martial artist. When he wore things, other men bought them. Men are still paying huge sums to have old Ford Mustangs fixed up to look like the one he drove in Bullitt. He wore a big ugly Tag Heuer Monaco watch in Grand Prix, and they were still using him in ads long after he died.

McQueen and his teammate came in second at Sebring in 1970, so he was a legitimate pro racer, like Paul Newman. He’s not a duffer like Tom Cruise, who has raced without much success.

McQueen was a heavy smoker and drug user. He killed Ali McGraw’s career by forcing her to quit working at her peak so she could be a housewife. He beat his first wife and also put a gun to her head to make her confess an affair.

Garner was similar in some ways, but he had a real marriage and didn’t achieve the heights McQueen did. He had a brown belt in karate. He could have been a pro golfer had he chosen. When he trained for Grand Prix, his teacher discovered he had extraordinary talent, and he claimed he could have been better than most of the top F1 drivers. Garner went on to race cars in his spare time.

Grand Prix was not a great movie. Pete Aron, Garner’s character, was involved in an incident involving a teammate. The teammate wanted to pass Aron in Monaco, and Aron resisted, which was a faux pas. Eventually, Aron let him pass, but the teammate’s car hit his rear wheel, and both cars were wrecked. The teammate ended up with serious injuries, and he struggled to get back to work before the end of the season. He blamed Aron for his injuries.

The teammate’s wife hated racing because she feared her husband would die. She left him after the accident, and she then began having sex with Aron, making things much worse.

That about sums it up. Various racers had sex with various women. The teammate came back to work. An older racer died in a wreck.

The teammate’s wife asked a great question. She asked Aron why men risked their lives for something unimportant. Aron told her it was very important to them. His explanation was that he was only alive when he was racing. The rest of the time, he was just waiting.

Le Mans had even less depth. Steve McQueen played Michael Delaney, a Porsche driver. He had a rivalry with a Ferrari driver named Stahler. The previous year, Delaney had been involved in an accident in which a woman’s husband died. The woman returned the next year to see Delaney and the others drive.

Delaney wrecked again, ruining his car. He and the widow had some boring conversations and ended up in his trailer. His team’s manager came in and told Delaney he had to drive another team member’s car because he was the only hope of a Porsche victory. Delaney left the trailer, drove hard, and came in second. He and the widow never made it into bed.

So why write about two bad movies?

I got a message: people do stupid things with their lives. We strive for earthly glory. We sacrifice important things, including our bodies themselves, for what amounts to garbage in the long view.

Who won the Formula One championship in 2005? No one cares. How much good did it do other people? Was anyone saved from damnation? Did anyone get a miraculous healing? Were any addicts delivered? Were the poor fed? Did unwanted kids get families?

Some guy who drove a car got a little richer. Some endorsements were sold. Some big, fat companies that sold trivial things got more publicity. Then the next season came along, and the champion was not the champion any more. He had to compete again.

People are like monkeys, and Satan is the monkey trainer. He waves shiny prizes that have no lasting value, and we cut each other’s throats to get them. In the process, we give up our relationships with God, along with Spirit-driven accomplishments that would have stayed with us for eternity. We give up the chance to accumulate new brothers and sisters to take with us to heaven. We give up the chance to end suffering and set people free.

These movies reminded me of my dislike of professional sports. Ignorant people do not know that pro sports and God have been at odds since before Jesus. There are actually Christians who think football teaches people to be closer to God, which is the opposite of correct. Football teaches aggression, violence, pride, cheating, greed, lust, and obsession with fleeting things.

The Greeks conquered Israel, and they instituted nude athletic competitions. Social-climbing Jews joined in, defying Yahweh and the priests, and they even tried to undo their circumcisions. Look up “Hellenism” and find out about it. It was a very big problem. Athletes have been distracting people and teaching children destructive values for millennia, not decades.

The characters in these movies treated themselves like garbage. They made themselves disposable. They served a vain purpose for a few years, helping on one except themselves.

As for The Front Page, it disturbed me because it made me realize I did not hate leftism enough. After I watched, I apologized to God for this. God really hates leftism. Satan was the first leftist, and all leftists are his children.

Let me tell you about Sacco and Vanzetti, whose story was one of the motivations behind The Front Page.

Believe it or not, Italian immigrants were a big problem a hundred years ago. I used to think Italians formed social groups to defend the reputation of their ethnicity because of the mob, but there is more to it than that. Italy sent us a large number of terrorists who, instead of kissing the ground of the country that saved them, and instead of working to be good citizens, murdered a lot of American citizens and tried to destroy the government.

For some reason, anarchism developed a following in Italy. Anarchism is the ultimate leftistm. Anarchists believe there is no such thing as a legitimate government.

I’ll be blunt. You have to be an utter imbecile to be an anarchist.

Am I saying you’re an imbecile because you don’t like the government? No. I don’t like the government, either. I’m saying you’re an imbecile because you think it’s possible for human beings to exist without government.

If you put 10 strangers in a locked compound, a month later, they will form a government. We will always form governments. People want to control each other. They want to protect themselves from other people. They naturally form gangs and generate leaders in order to achieve these goals.

A government is just a gang with a flag.

Anarchists believe they can get rid of the government and then live government-free lives. That is beyond asinine. Kill every government employee in the United States today, and new governments will start to spring up in under 24 hours. And they will make you miss the government you eliminated, because they will be incompetent and much more cruel and amoral than an established government that has been honed over centuries.

It’s not just people. Put chickens or dogs together, and they form hierarchies.

The true choice isn’t between government and no government. It’s between different governments.

Only true idiots can be anarchists. It is incomprehensible that anyone can be that stupid.

Sacco and Vanzetti were part of a faction that killed all sorts of people. They set off a lot of bombs.

They were convicted of murder. Sacco shot someone, and Vanzetti was his partner. They were guilty as hell. Ballistics tests and witnesses prove it.

Still, their convictions and executions are controversial. There were supposedly improprieties in their trials. I don’t know the details. I am willing to stipulate that they may have been tried unfairly. The fact remains: they were worthless, despicable, dangerous human beings, and their kind needed to be sent a message. They deserved execution, and their executions probably did America a lot of good.

You can wrong a murderer by trying him unfairly and executing him. Doing such things is wrong, and we have to fight corruption in the justice system, but unfair trials don’t make murderers innocent. Oswald was lynched by Jack Ruby, but he was still guilty.

Leftists have been whining about Sacco and Vanzetti for decades. They have turned them into martyrs and heroes. Michael Dukakis, the inept former governor of Massachusetts went so far as to proclaim a day in their honor without consulting or according any courtesy to the families of the victims.

The Front Page is about Earl Williams, a leftist who is about to be executed for murdering a policeman. Williams is portrayed as a sweet, impressionable little man. A cuddly, vulnerable murderer you naturally want to hug. Most of the action takes place in a room at the penitentiary set aside for journalists.

The journalists are extremely vile. They’re supposed to be funny, but they’re disgusting. As they call their papers to send in stories, they lie without the slightest hesitation. They make sick jokes about the upcoming hanging. A prostitute who tried to help Williams shows up to criticize them for their callousness, and they ridicule her until she jumps out of a window. A paid shrink shows up to analyze Williams, and Williams shoots him. They joke about that while he’s in the operating room.

The interesting thing is that Ben Hecht knew the subject matter. He was writing about journalists as he had known them. I assume he exaggerated their faults to some extent, but he must have based their personalities on his real life experiences. Watching the movie will make you wish they were the ones being hanged.

They remind me of comedians. Comedians tend to be disgusting people.

I quit watching after a while. The characters were off-putting, and the movie was poorly done compared to the Cary Grant version.

Afterward, I read up on Sacco and Vanzetti, and I thought about Ben Hecht and the way he had portrayed his former colleagues.

It made me hate leftism more than ever. I certainly understand why people would be upset over an unfair trial, regardless of who the defendant was. But lionizing a couple of dangerous, vicious criminals who were also ungrateful and toxic immigrants? How can anyone do that?

I didn’t like the idea of writing a movie that made terrorists look good, and I didn’t like the godless, hellbound journalists. I hated their cynicism and the pleasure they took in the suffering, injuries, and deaths of others.

The word “leftism” comes from the French Revolution, but the concept is far older. It’s just rebellion. Any hierarchy that doesn’t have God at the apex is leftist.

When Satan tempted Eve, it was an act of leftism. Adam and Eve were leftists. They rebelled against their only legitimate authority.

The best government is a face-to-face relationship with God. After that comes submission to prophets and priests who obey God. After that comes submission to kings who honor God. After that comes rule by godly assemblies. After that come various forms of democracy, which is a degenerate and evil institution.

Adam was under the best government. Since then, things have gotten worse and worse. The Jews had prophets and priests, and that wasn’t bad, but they stupidly demanded a king. When the time of kings ended on Earth, the world descended into backward systems which put nations at the mercy of every moron who could pull a handle and cast a vote.

Moses was chosen directly by God. David was anointed by a prophet. Hitler was elected. Something to think about.

It’s astounding, where leftism and hatred of God’s authority has taken us. In places of power, we now have spectacular degenerates whose very nature we could not have conceived in the near past.

Have you seen the amazing specimen Biden appointed to be his deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy? You have probably been reading about him. His name is Sam Brinton.

Brinton has disclaimed his proper gender, calling himself nonbinary. It is impossible to figure out what he is trying to be. I will post a photo. It’s fair use.

What exactly is this?

As you may know, he has been fired for stealing luggage repeatedly. Gay men like luxury goods. I don’t know if the bags were Vuitton or what, but it makes sense that a person like this would want luxury bags.

Brinton claims to have “survived” brutal conversion therapy, but a person who interviewed him says his story does not check out.

He’s involved with our children. This freakish person. He helped create official policy enabling schools to hide children’s sexual confusion from their parents. Fox says he:

played a key role in developing a model school policy adopted in multiple states that instructs school districts to keep “unaffirming” parents in the dark about a potentially suicidal child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.

Look at him. And if you live in a place where his recommendations have been adopted, he has power over your relationship with your children. YOUR children. Not the states.

We paid him to do this. We voted for the people who gave him the power.

I live in a country where we paid this creature to give government the power to hide and nurture sexual perversion–abomination–in our children. It is inconceivable to me that anyone could be anything but shocked and distressed to know this happened.

It’s going to get much worse. If Jesus tarries, we will see creatures like this in the Oval Office. There is no limit to the oddities and abominations we can come up with and empower with Satan’s help.

Yesterday and today Rhodah and I were talking about the rapture. I told her I felt bad because I ate a lot of ice cream, but I said part of me doesn’t care, because I feel like the world is ending, so what difference does it make what I eat?

Today we tried to think of the things we would eat if we heard the rapture trumpet blow. I said I would rush to the freezer and open the ice cream. Or I’d be lifted to heaven with a slice of pizza in each hand. Of course, we were kidding, and we had some laughs, but the rapture will come, and most of the things people do in the weeks leading up to it won’t matter. They will be preparing, well or counterproductively, for a future that will not come.

If you quit working out right before the rapture, no big deal. You won’t be here long enough to go flabby and feel bad about it. If you spend your retirement money, no big deal. Stop mowing your yard? No big deal.

Stop touching up your roots. The rapture is coming. Don’t plant your crops. The rapture is coming. Don’t show up for jury duty. Speed. Quit your job. Throw out your contraceptives.

I’m not suggesting these things. Just thinking about actions that will stop mattering at some point.

People will be pulled out of jail cells, defendants’ chairs, operating rooms, and even wombs. More abortions will take place on that day than on any other day in the history of the world. God will have to remove the innocent from the wombs of degenerate women.

We also tried to think of things we would buy if we had all the money in the world. I had a hard time coming up with anything. Finally, I blurted it out. “I’ll start flying business class!” Not even first class. The extra money doesn’t seem to buy you much.

I thought of business class because I take a lot of long flights, and I really hate flying coach, but paying $5000 or more for one seat is more than I am willing to consider at the moment. Put a billion in my account, and I’ll spring for it.

I said I would also get Rhodah more rubies, but not really big ones, because ostentation is wrong.

I would make sure my home was in top shape, and I would probably try to move to Tennessee

That’s about it. No Lamborghinis. No gold Rolexes. No more Zegna suits.

To get back to the rapture, I really do not want to be here when the cabinet consists of a bunch of smirking, effeminate bald men with bro staches and tacky prom dresses.

I care less and less to be involved with this world, and I am having a hard time motivating myself to do anything but pray, eat, and work to bring my wife home. I assume this will pass and the rapture will come much later than I hope, because this is how things have worked so far, but my feelings are real.

I can’t wait for the day when it finally happens.

Not the Cure for Jet Lag

It’s gradually sinking in: I have nephews.

It somehow seems unfair that people automatically become my relatives just because I marry someone, but I have discovered that this is the way it works. My wife has a couple of sisters, and both have kids. Her sister became a grandmother at 38, and my wife has been a great aunt since 2020. That makes me a great uncle, which is practically the same thing as a grandfather, so I feel like I should be shopping for a coffin and some Mephisto shoes.

I can’t help feeling that uncle status should involve some kind of participation or consent, but it doesn’t. You marry someone, and BANG, there it is. A label. And an obligation to buy Christmas gifts. I guess.

Rhodah does not have parents any more. It’s terrible that they died young, of course, but I have to admit that it made things easier for me. Rhodah is younger than I am, so it might have been awkward if I had had to butter her parents up. It would feel wrong, currying favor with my father-in-law by taking him to Universal Studios or buying him a skateboard.

Rhodah is helping her sister and brother-in-law move to Lusaka, the capital city I had no idea Zambia had until last year. As a result, they and their 4 sons have had to stay with Rhodah this week.

To imagine what Rhodah is going through, consider some facts. She spent around 12 days in Singapore, 8 time zones away, and then she took a 21-hour trip home on crowded planes. She arrived to a a spotless house and started trying to sleep. A few days later, the Fresh Princes of Lusaka and their parents arrived.

The house is a disaster now. The air conditioner remote is broken. The living room rug, which had just been cleaned, is filthy. Books which had been stored neatly on shelves are lying in random locations. Everything is dirty. And Rhodah has had to share a bed with a nephew who kicks like a mule. Fortunately, that stops. When he gets up at 5 a.m.

I told her this was a great chance to teach them how to clean. Their mother weighs about 35 pounds, so they need to start helping her. I don’t think my suggestion will be implemented.

My mother did not teach my sister or me much of anything about responsibility, so we both became slobs, and my mother did a lot more work than she should have. It’s kind of ironic. She resented her own mother for making her and her sisters clean the house, and she resolved not to teach her daughter to clean. I think I was spared because I was a male. In Kentucky, men didn’t do anything around the house. The women used to stand and serve meals while the men ate, and the women ate later. My mother didn’t want her daughter to be a slave to a husband, but by teaching her to be slovenly, she ended up extending her own servitude.

I was probably around 6 when my mother finally taught me to tie my own shoes. She was mad at me, and she said she couldn’t keep doing it for me. Thing is, she had no reason to be mad at me. I would have done whatever she wanted, but she chose not to teach me, so she got what she deserved.

I now believe kids should be taught to be clean and neat and capable as early as possible. I have no intention of wiping a 5-year-old’s rear end when he can, and should, do it himself. Very young kids can put toys away and throw dirty clothes in hampers. It’s not integral calculus, and it’s pretty obvious that the ability to get things done and look after oneself is a big asset in life.

I think we wait too long to teach kids things. When I was a kid, someone taught me a little bit about multiplication a few years early, and I had no trouble understanding the concept. Then, instead of moving on to greater things, I stagnated until school got around to covering the same material.

I could have been years ahead in math, but no one had the good sense to teach me. I was also taught to read at least three times. My mother taught me when I was very young. Then I went to kindergarten and relearned, using an asinine woke system called ITA which replaced real spelling with moronic leftist letters that had to be unlearned later. Then they taught me real reading again. I remember arguing with the other kids, telling them the real spellings of words were wrong.

I should have been taught real English at age three and then been given a lot of stuff to read.

By waiting to teach me things I was obviously capable of learning, people set me back in life and reinforced my natural laziness, and they also taught me to hate school, which was unbelievably boring.

Now I say beat the little ones until they pick up their toys, and teach them anything their tiny heads can absorb. They will bless you for it later, and if you die while they’re young, they will have strengths that will help them stay afloat.

Some people say kids don’t have enough free time and they need hours and hours to play. Nonsense. What they have is too much after-school status garbage. Your kids should not be doing gymnastics 4 hours a day. They should not be training to be Olympic athletes or practicing the piano until 9 p.m. These things are true. But you don’t bring a kid home from school and just turn him loose with the TV remote and the dirty magazines he knows you hide in your closet. Kids should have to do chores. They should do things for spending money. They shouldn’t just wander around until dinner time, looking for things to set on fire or break.

When I was a kid, my friends and I did healthy things like playing football and various forms of baseball, but we also abused lizards, shot songbirds with BB guns, burned things, took expensive things apart and could not put them back together, made our own fireworks, played with guns, killed fish we could not eat, trespassed, committed acts of vandalism, and wasted our time in other ways. And we were fairly well-behaved by local standards. This is what “unstructured play” really is when parents are lazy and uninvolved.

Spoiling kids is one of the worst forms of neglect.

The concept of the importance of “unstructured play” comes from leftists, so naturally, it’s extremely destructive. When street gangs in New York rape women and beat them to death, it’s unstructured play.

Unstructured play is a symptom of fatherlessness. When you’re a kid and you don’t know what to do with yourself or how to act, it’s because your father has failed you. Fatherless kids go to prison, end up in rehab, die young, and so on. A father is supposed to prevent you from becoming a directionless idiot. Jews have successful children because Jewish fathers are involved. People from my culture are lucky if their kids have jobs at Walmart.

Fatherlessness is an extremely important concept in Christianity, but no one teaches about it correctly.

Anyway, Rhodah will not get any peace until tonight, and she will still have to sleep one night in a dirty house. Then she’ll have to pay to get her rug and car cleaned.

The really funny thing about all this is that Rhodah looks forward to having children. I’m on board, but I believe I have a better understanding of what she is in for than she does.

No point in thinking about it too much. There is nothing that can be done. Raising children will be challenging no matter what. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

I can tell the nephews are a lot of fun. The dirt and disorder don’t change that. It’s too bad they will always be thousands of miles away.

I feel like God is making me a patriarch, which is something I never expected or wanted to be. I have two sisters-in-law, 5 nephews, a niece, and a great-nephew. I have two godchildren. A friend whose dad has abandoned his family has 5 kids who appear to think I’m their grandfather, and one of them is my goddaughter. She sends me funny little texts out of nowhere and tells her family she wants to visit my house again.

My mother’s father was the patriarch in my family. He had the big house everyone ran to for shelter. He helped all of us when we needed it. Now I’m the one with the big house and the tractors and the gun room and the cattle, and sometimes I can be helpful.

There are 5 male grandchildren, and none of the others have taken this role. Two seem to have no interest in helping anyone else. One is a devoted single father but would never do anything for anyone outside his own family. The remaining one is living a normal and profitable life in the financial industry, with a wife and, I believe, two daughters. No one ever thinks of calling him when there’s a problem. He has nothing to do with the family now.

I have this feeling that a patriarch is a tall bald guy with long hair and a white beard, who always knows what to do. I don’t always know what to do. I have made a lot of bad decisions. I have not made any effort to build a family, develop an estate, or become a leader. But here I am.

It’s good to be important to people. I never saw it coming. It beats spending the rest of my life alone, flying around the world on fishing trips or something.

I think some people may come to my funeral!

“Smitty,” They call Me

Reader LauraW posted some interesting comments about my recent dealings with my elderly aunt.

My grandparents left some property to their descendants, and my 78-year-old aunt is in charge of getting rid of it and distributing the proceeds. She should have been finished with nearly everything in about 2012. She doesn’t provide bank statements or reports, and she says she doesn’t have to, which is something most prosecutors would disagree with.

She has Parkinson’s, and her health is very, very bad. She has trouble speaking and walking. She has been hospitalized at least once. Her husband is 89 and appears to be senile. He is also in bad health, and he is not expected to stay out of assisted living long. He takes care of my aunt, so a crisis is expected soon.

My aunt has two grown children. I can’t imagine her son offering to care for her. It would be very unlike him. I think her daughter and her son-in-law would want to do the right thing, but they have kids to deal with, and their house is not that big. In all likelihood, my aunt will have to choose between 24-hour live-in help or the local nursing home.

While I was in Singapore, my aunt texted me and said I needed to contact her right away about a property she wanted to sell, and I responded, saying I was in the process of flying home and I would try to contact her the next day. When I arrived, I called her. She was very angry with me from the second she answered the phone. She was angry with me for taking a trip, and she demanded to know why I had done it.

She asked me who goes on vacation during November, as though I had done it to offend her, personally. Well, can anyone think of a day in November when people like to travel? And who calls his aunt for permission to leave town? No one thinks, “I want to go to Fiji, so I better call all my elderly relatives who almost never talk to me.”

While we were talking, I spoke very bluntly about her poor performance, but I was not rude. She apparently felt she was being attacked personally. She said a lot of very insulting things about me which were shocking and untrue, and she speculated that I was poor and desperate and had no one in my life except a “sorry dog.” Paradoxically, she also criticized me for bragging that I was “filthy rich,” which I did not do. I didn’t tell her anything about my financial situation.

You can read more details in an earlier post.

LauraW says she was an RN, and she worked with psych patients and old people. She said urinary tract infections sometimes cause old people to go nuts, and she said antibiotics bring them back.

I don’t know anything about my aunt’s urinary health. We are not close these days, and even if we were, I would not be connected with her care in any way. She has her husband and children, and aside from that, she is not inclined to take advice.

I decided to look up Parkinson’s. I knew it caused dementia and other mental problems, but that was about the sum of my knowledge.

Parkinson’s is incurable and fatal. The web says it isn’t fatal, but that’s not really true, because it causes problems that shorten life. When it sets in in late middle age, you can expect to live about 20 more years, depending on the breaks. My aunt is at the upper range of that period now.

When I was a kid, and people got fatal diseases, doctors either told them they were going to die, or they told their families and let the families keep them in the dark. Now, the fashionable thing is to refuse to say conditions are fatal. It doesn’t mean they’re not. It just means the medical establishment has developed a bias against saying so. The official dogma appears to be that Parkinson’s isn’t fatal, but on the other hand, you can find all sorts of sites discussing deaths caused by Parkinson’s, so, yes, it’s fatal, unless something else gets you first. The same could be said of any fatal disease. You can get rabies and die from an unrelated heart attack.

We think of Parkinson’s as something that causes tremors, but it also causes hallucinations, delusions, and dementia.

I found out it can make people paranoid and likely to argue. They may become physically violent.

It is common for people with Parkinson’s to see things that aren’t there, like brightly-colored animals.

My aunt said some weird things to me, causing me to wonder if she was experiencing psychosis. She seemed panicked because I was questioning her actions as my fiduciary. Panicked people often lash out. Proud people with dementia do this when you question their faculties.

She seemed to feel it would help if she criticized my life to make me feel like a loser. Thing is, she doesn’t know much about my life because her side of the family started excluding me a long time ago. She had to guess. She attacked in various areas, including the area of romance and family. She said I had flown to Egypt to try and find a woman who would agree to come home with me and marry me. That was weird.

Did someone tell my aunt I went to Egypt last year? I don’t know. I don’t believe she knows. I know she has no idea I’m married, because she said she had grandchildren and all I had was the dog she imagined. One of her longstanding traits is that she wants people to admire her life and feel bad about their own.

My grandparents had eight grandchildren, and by God’s blessing and no virtue of my own, I turned out to be the smartest. I think this gnaws at my aunt. She used to tell me how brilliant her kids were, even though it wasn’t true. Then it was her son in law, who went on to die in a plane crash, removing him from the arsenal. Now it’s the grandchildren. Evidently, they are all prodigies, although no one else in the family seems to have noticed. She also tells me how incredibly intelligent various local eccentrics are, even though there is no truth at all in that. Smart people get out of Eastern Kentucky.

I think she was guessing about the trip I just completed, which had nothing to do with Egypt. If she had heard anything substantial about last year’s Egypt trip, she would know I was married. I took that trip with my then-fiancee.

I didn’t mention my marriage because I felt it could be helpful to me to hold onto that information, and I didn’t feel any motivation to get into the process of arguing with her about whether I was a loser and she and her family were to be greatly admired. That kind of bickering is not important to me. I didn’t insult her kids or her life, and I certainly had room to do so.

It would be pretty strange to go to Egypt to find a wife. The prime countries for foreign brides are the Philippines and Thailand, as far as I know. I believe Ukraine is also high on the list. Egypt is a Muslim country, so it’s not a great hunting ground. Nothing spoils a wedding night like a honor killing.

Finding a wife in the US is not exactly hard, so it makes no sense to suggest I would fly overseas if I were desperate. If you’re a desperate American male, stay where you are. You just have to make yourself available, have a net worth, and stop saying no. Finding a wife you actually want is another story. Only God can arrange that.

In any case, if I had been desperate for a wife, I would have looked here first. In fact, I did, when I decided to check out online dating. The Americans who popped up…there was just no way. Unthinkable.

My aunt must have come up with Egypt through a coincidental delusion or a guess. My wife and I have been to 4 countries, so the odds of her randomly picking one we had visited were not all that low.

I don’t think American brides will ever be hard for American men to find, and I doubt they will ever be in big demand overseas, because they tend to be spoiled, selfish, conceited, and misandrist. And they’re not especially attractive compared to the competition. Far Eastern brides get the best marks in that area, and Eastern European girls are also very impressive compared to Americans. American women also have a very high obesity rate. Over 40% of American women are obese, and 12% are severely obese.

I can say these incendiary things now, because I’m married and have nothing to be afraid of. Although, to be honest, I would have said them anyway.

I am checking Wikipedia, and it looks like I’m right. It says:

The majority of the women making use of these services in the late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century are from Southeast Asia and from Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union.

It also backs up what my friend Mike, who does business with Ukrainians, has told me:

52 percent of Russia’s workforce is made up of women, yet according to some sources they often hold low positions of prominence in their home country and work jobs with less respect and lower wages (such as teaching or physician positions); and women earn 43 percent of what men do. Marriage is a substantial part of Russian culture, with 30 years being the age at which a woman is considered an “old maid”. With 4,138,273 more females than males from the ages of 15 to 64, marriage opportunities are slim at home and worsened by the life expectancy difference between men (64.3 years) and women (73.17 years), as well as the fact that a large portion of successful males are emigrating out of Russia.

I realize Ukraine is not Russia, but the foreign-marriage business is big not only in Russia itself, but also in countries like Ukraine which have similar cultures and are part of the same general area.

Foreign men who pursue American girls are generally looking for money or temporary non-Muslim demi-wives to serve as unpaid servants and sex providers.

For all their problems, I don’t think American men are as undesirable as American women. If you think they are, I have three questions.

1. Why is “bridezilla” a word, while “groomzilla” is not?

2. Why do American women crave marriage while most American men fear it?

3. Why are American men lining up to find foreign brides while almost no American women are looking for foreign men?

In at least three places, Proverbs cautions against the horror of an combative wife. I go further. I always say marrying the wrong woman is, literally, worse than cancer. America is a great place to find the wrong wife.

My aunt seems way more argumentative than she used to be, which could be a Parkinson’s symptom. I’m not sure, though, because I used to be one of her favorites, so I may not have seen what others have been seeing all her life. I have been told my sister and my other living aunt were chewed out royally by her. I have heard stories that made her sound pretty awful. Maybe she has always been nasty to other people.

In conversations with me, she always sought approval. I think she wants validation from people who didn’t grow up in Eastern Kentucky. I think she perceives them as more sophisticated, which is true.

My wife and I pray for my relatives. That’s all we can do. When thinking about what’s happening makes me angry, and it does, I use my supernatural tools to end it and get God’s help to love them. I don’t want pettiness to damage my relationship with Him.

Unsaved people who are too close to you will be used to drag you down to hell. This is why we are not to be unequally yoked. Provocation is one way they do it.

I’m very glad my relatives are only connected to a small part of what I have. Such independence is a gift from God, and it is an extraordinarily great gift I did nothing to deserve. I deserve poverty, but God lifted me up. Many, many people are in horrible marriages or are caught up in family turmoil or have cruel employers and jobs they can’t quit. I have been spared in spite of inviting these problems.

My aunt criticized my parents and me, saying we were ashamed of our people and our culture. Don’t ask me to explain it, but she felt this disqualified me from telling her she should advertise real estate on the web like everyone else, including people in Appalachia. She thinks I should be ashamed because I don’t admire my people, or former people. I thought about her remarks a lot yesterday.

If you’re a Christian, it’s very important to reject your earthly culture and to be ashamed of it, especially if you come from a backward place like the one where my aunt lives.

It goes beyond rejecting certain earthly cultures. You have to reject the culture and ways of the earth as a whole. Things that work to make you successful as an unbeliever don’t work for Christians. To make it without God, you are expected to be proud, aggressive, relentlessly self-promoting, greedy, and way too devoted to hard work. To succeed as a Christian, you have to be humble, peaceful, self-abasing, generous, and unwilling to sacrifice your relationship with God in order to make money.

Backward cultures are worse than relatively healthy ones, emphasizing stupid things like fighting, drinking, emotionalism, ethnic pride, racism, fornication, adultery, and contempt for education. All these things are celebrated in Eastern Kentucky.

My wife rejects Zambian culture. People ask me why I don’t go visit her, and I tell them she doesn’t want me to. We have no incentive to get together there. There is nothing in Zambia except wild animals and Victoria Falls. Her parents are dead. The relatives who looked after her when she was young treated her badly, and a number of them are witches who put curses on her.

Rhodah used to want to enter politics so she could fix Zambia. Now she wants to get out and move to America. She’s not stupid. She can look around and see that her country isn’t going anywhere. There are a lot of good Christians there, but they are outnumbered by pagans and Catholics. America is doomed, but it offers a better standard of living and a husband who will be unified with her in her relationship with God. Most importantly, I think, it will get destructive relatives out of her life.

You have to hold onto the family God gives you, but you should also cut the old one loose.

Yesterday we talked about our names. She said she wants to dump both of her names, both first and last. She was a neglected child, and her first name was issued as an afterthought. She was so neglected, her birth date is uncertain because no one cared enough about her to keep good records. She says I should pray for God to tell me what to name her.

I plan to get rid of my dad’s last name. I like the idea of taking my mother’s father’s name, which is a very common one. I want to get rid of my middle name because a middle name is one more thing to write down on forms, and it makes you easier to trace. We can have nice, common names that are very hard for people to use to look us up on the web. Perfect for making a new start. I don’t want people from my past, especially hopeful divorced women, bothering me. My life and my real brothers and sisters are in the future.

I don’t know how my aunt feels about people of other races today, but I know what she said in the past. I have to wonder what will go through her mind if Rhodah and I show up with a mixed-race son who has my grandfather’s first and last names. I think my grandfather’s family name is a bit like an Hermes “H” to her.

Time for yet another digression. A year or two ago, my dad’s email address got a message from a woman who used to work for him. She was an associate in his firm. She wanted to know how he was doing. Mind you, this was a person who probably had not contacted him in 10 years, and she had no idea he was dead.

I emailed her back, letting her know my dad had passed away. So of course, she responded with condolences, asked what happened, and said she hoped I was okay.

No, she didn’t! She didn’t respond at all. And I know her and her husband. We are not strangers.

Googling, I see that she and the man I knew as her husband now live in different states.

Here’s what I think: she took her shot. Best guess. Maybe she emails other elderly single men.

I don’t think she had a heartfelt interest. My dad was rude to his subordinates and said all sorts of offensive things to them. I recall two colorful terms he used to refer to this lady.

I don’t think she’s a malevolent person, but it’s common for older women to need money, and marrying is one of the most common ways to fill the need.

The older a man gets, the more women will see him as a potential musical chair. Something to be aware of.

To get back on track, I am expected to be excited about my people and be loyal to them, but who are my people? Not my grandfather’s descendants. They don’t care about me at all. My people are those who are Spirit-led. Jesus said the same thing. He said, “whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother,” and the word says it is impossible to please God in the flesh, so he was talking about Spirit-led people.

Maybe we should call ourselves Mr. and Mrs. Jim and Mary Smith. Does it matter whether our earthly names have any connection to our ancestors? People who claim to have died and visited heaven sometimes tell us we have new names there, which is probably true. I can’t imagine heaven having three million people named John Jones.

I used to think Eastern Kentucky was my refuge and a sort of paradise on Earth, but now I have no desire to go there again. It’s like Miami to me. I hope I never have to visit again. Drugs, laziness, violence, racism, self-inflicted poverty, childishness…these are the things it offers me. It offers to pull me backward and take away whatever improvements God has made.

Eastern Kentucky is rich, or it used to be before leftists killed the coal industry. It should be like Texas. Instead, Kentuckians sold their mineral rights to less-backward people from places like New York City, and they became laborers for the people who owned the coal. It wasn’t theft, regardless of what apologists say. They did what Esau did. They gave their birthrights away for fleeting short-end benefits.

Fools are supposed to lose their money to responsible people. It’s not an aberration, and it certainly isn’t unjust. Appalachia has poverty because it earned it.

The funny thing about what my aunt said is that it applies to her, too. She is also ashamed of her culture and her people. She’s always trying to make them look better, and she likes to claim accomplished people who came from the area. The problem is that she claims people whose parents got out before they were born. She likes to talk about J.D. Vance and Cameron Crowe.

Until my aunt told me, I had no idea who J.D. Vance was or that he was connected to Breathitt County, Kentucky, where my grandfather sat as judge. I didn’t know who Cameron Crowe was or that he had a parent from Powell County, another county on my grandfather’s circuit. Vance is a senator-elect who wrote a bestseller about toxic mountain culture, and Crowe wrote Jerry Maguire.

The problem with using them to prop up Kentucky is that both these men are from other places. Like many Kentuckians who wanted better lives, Vance’s parents moved to Ohio, and he was born there. Crowe has only one parent from Kentucky, and he was born in Palm Springs.

Obviously, the Vances and the Crowes were unhappy with our culture, and their sons probably would not have succeeded had they stayed in Kentucky. Furthermore, Vance clearly has a low opinion of his parents’ culture, because his book, Hillbilly Elegy, has a slur in the title and depicts a family destroyed by mountain ways.

If you thought Mexico had a great culture, would you write a book about car thieves and gangs in Los Angeles and call it Wetback Memories? The name of Vance’s book killed my interest in reading it. I don’t think anyone should call another person a hillbilly.

J.D. Vance has no accent. How about that? Neither does Crowe. Losing your accent is considered one of the most important steps in masking your Kentucky roots. It’s a tradition among social climbers who leave.

Loyalty to earthly connections is a tool of the antichrist. The spirit of antichrist pulls people backward and makes them feel a groundless loyalty to the cultures of the earth. Satan wants us to put our families and ethnic groups above God. Clinging to degenerate ways out of mindless loyalty is a great way to make sure you are never transformed by the Holy Spirit, and it can also help you on your way to hell.

It’s also a great tool for starting wars. We identify with nations instead of the family of God, so instead of having the unified interests of God, we have the conflicting interests of squabbling countries.

I don’t know what will happen with my biological relatives, except maybe the one I baptized, but I have a great Christian wife and a number of friends who are my true brothers and sisters. My biologicals distanced themselves from me a long time ago, so I don’t feel much of an attachment now.

Kentucky is getting worse and worse. I was there in 2019 for my dad’s burial, and my second cousin told me she had told her kids to leave the area. Appalachia had its big revival about 80 years ago. Since then, in Eastern Kentucky, there has been more deterioration than progress.

I still like the idea of moving to a Christian area in Tennessee. Kentucky and West Virginia are a mess, but it seems like there are places in Tennessee where a Christian could enjoy life.

There is a guy in Scotland who pops up occasionally and makes Youtube videos about things God has shown him. He has nearly no subcribers. He just put up a video in which he discusses the fact that Spirit-led Christians lose their interest in carnal pursuits and the things of the world. To me, it’s obvious that maintaining your unity with stubborn unsaved people is an example of a worldly pursuit.

Use Your Enemies as Diagnostic Tools

I feel I should continue writing about the weird conversation I had with my aunt yesterday. In the past, she tried to get my approval and validation, but yesterday, she let her true thoughts and feelings come out.

She said extremely strange things. She accused me of bothering her about our mutual financial interests because I was poor and irresponsible and needed money right away. Then she suggested I was bragging about being rich. She said she had grandchildren while I had nothing except a “sorry dog.” She theorized that I had run off to Egypt to see if I could get a wife to come home with me. She didn’t explain why she picked Egypt.

The things she said contradicted each other and had no basis in fact. She made things up on the fly; a stream of hopeful delusions. I guess the demons were tossing out bait, hoping I would bite on something. Her tone of voice was venomous. The only other person who speaks to me that way is my estranged sister, and I am the one who estranged her.

I told my wife all about it today. Her attitude is the same as mine. She believes that if demonized people hate you, it means you’re doing something right.

It made me think of Rabshakeh.

During the time of Hezekiah, Jerusalem was besieged by Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Sennacherib sent Rabshakeh, or, more accurately, the rabshakeh, to discuss terms. “Rabshakeh” is a title, not a name. This is not obvious in the KJV text. The rabshakeh was a messenger.

Hezekiah was a pretty good king, and he had done good things. He destroyed worship sites belonging to other religions, and in the Bible, that always brought Judah and Israel favor. He hoped God would deliver him from the Assyrians. The rabshakeh said this:

Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, the Lord will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

This was a bad move on the rabshakeh’s part.

Hezekiah also received a letter full of similar nonsense. He took it to the temple and spread it out before the Lord, and he called on the Lord to rise up and punish the Assyrians for insulting Him. Instead of asking God to intervene for Judah’s sake, he asked him to defend his own name.

An angel came in the night and killed 185,000 Assyrian troops, and back in Assyria, Sennacherib’s sons eventually murdered him.

Yesterday, Satan used my aunt as his rabshakeh. The defeated, powerless spirits that work for him used her to express contempt for my beliefs, suggesting she doesn’t think God gives me an enviable life like hers (!), and they also used her to revile me and make nutty accusations.

I have talked to my aunt about God a lot, hoping to help her get some of the blessings I have gotten. She has generally pretended to be more or less in agreement. She wants to be perceived as a serious Christian. She has never told me my doctrine was stupid or wrong. She is a Catholic, however. She converted in her old age. She doesn’t know anything about the Holy Spirit. I have never been able to interest her in correct doctrine or a real meeting with God.

The cult of Catholicism is a problem among women in my family. Even my mother was drawn to it. Catholicism has a strong worldly appeal.

Catholics like to claim they have the only “official” church, and they impugn other churches and say people who are not Catholics go to hell. It gives the impression of offering security, and women crave security.

Catholicism is full of pageantry and performance, and women are drawn to those things. Catholicism also takes responsibility off people, and women like handing their responsibilities off to others. They do it to their husbands all the time. Catholicism says, “Do what you want all week, come in and take communion, and we will work things out with God.”

My aunt would tell you she is a Christian, but the marks aren’t there. There is no ministry in her life. She has a worshipful attitude toward famous people, which no Christian who knows God has. Respecting persons is forbidden to us. She is emotional and biased. She is quick to anger. She loves admiration.

The impression I have is that she thinks my doctrine is ridiculous, even though she has pretended to take me seriously. I think she looks down on people like me.

This may be because her grandmother was a charismatic. Her dad’s mother was a widow, and she got caught up in the charismatic revival in Appalachia during the last century. She used to go to town and hand out tracts. My mother said she would go off by herself to pray, and when she returned, her face glowed. People accused her of going behind her house to pray, returning, and saying she had been to Jerusalem. Probably not true, but it shows how they saw charismatics.

In Kentucky, charismatics are known as “holy rollers.” This term refers to rolling in the floor. Charismatics are known to fall down and lie on the floor when they are under the influence of the Holy Spirit, or when they just want people to think they are.

Holy rollers are seen as ignorant and backward.

My great grandmother was respected for some things, but she was also ridiculed. Maybe my aunt turned to the pope in order to distance herself from the odor of the religion of hillbillies.

It’s strange. On one hand, she promotes the untenable and absurd notion that Eastern Kentucky is full of unsung geniuses, and she is furious at me because she thinks I’m ashamed of the area. On the other, she seeks validation from city people and people who have left, so she must be ashamed, too. I guess she is seeking validation from the Catholic church. “I live here, but I know better than these people.”

Her attitude reminds me of the rabshakeh. She seems to be reproaching God by wronging me and claiming God, as I worship him, is a useless and embarrassing fantasy.

My aunt has Parkinson’s. She has a hard time talking. She has dementia and makes involuntary movements. Her 89-year-old husband, who is somewhat senile, has to take care of her. They both have serious medical problems, and she has been incapacitated and hospitalized at least once. Her relationships with her sister, son, and nephews are a mess. Her relatives have no respect for her. Her son’s life is a wreck that embarrasses her.

I’m in good health. I have no prescriptions. I’m very strong for my age. Yesterday, I got off a plane after 30 or so hours of hard travel without sleep, and I carried and dragged two heavy bags all over the Orlando airport with a bounce in my step, looking for a shuttle. I enjoyed the excercise. I walked fast to dissipate the excess energy.

I should have been on my back on a public bench, trying to sleep before daring to drive home.

My wife is a jewel. I live in a wonderful place. I don’t have to work. I have fantastic friends. There is ministry in my life. I have a daily prayer partner. I get miracle healings. God speaks to me and tells me helpful things that change my life. My wife has prophetic visions, and she has seen Jesus, who has also visited me. We have no major problems. We have some issues with relatives, but nothing like what my aunt goes through every day. Things keep getting better for us.

I am a bad person, and there are many people out there doing Christianity much better, but it’s very obvious that my wife and I are basically on the right course. It is strange that someone who is as miserable as my aunt would dismiss me as a failed eccentric who is out of God’s favor, or that she would see herself as someone who has found the correct path. A good relationship with God shouldn’t lead you to dementia, disability, and constant turmoil.

If the pope is right, why is it people who follow him get such poor results and people like me get such good ones? I’ve never known a single Catholic who reported a healing, but I’ve seen plenty of Christians healed.

As for my aunt, I can understand how a person with a good life might feel entitled to dismiss someone else’s beliefs and provide correction, but why would someone who is unhappy, burdened with terrible problems, and deprived of good relationships feel that way?

It makes me think of those silly emails I used to get, recommending Oprah Winfrey’s dieting secrets. Whenever I think of bad advice from bad sources, I think of those. If Naomi Campbell has some dieting advice, I’ll listen, but I’m not taking any from Oprah.

I was on my last flight yesterday, and I thought I felt someone touch my right knee. I looked, and no one was there. I started to feel warmth going through both knees. I started thanking God. About a decade ago, I had a couple of spontaneous healing episodes in church. I felt pulsating warmth around both knees, and God took away some soreness problems I was having. On the plane yesterday, I thought I might be experiencing the same thing again, so I jumped on the chance and gave thanks profusely to maximize the benefits. Today my knees feel great.

I would like to see my aunt have experiences like that instead of struggling to talk and relying on other people to move her around. But how can she receive anything from God when she can’t take advice?

I got a lot of revelation about humility on the plane. God started lecturing me about looking down on people for certain reasons. He showed me there were areas where I was being a snob. It was very generous of him. God will never stop teaching you valuable things if you listen. When you stop listening, he stops talking, and then you have to rely on your little monkey brain, which is mainly good for getting you in trouble.

If I listen to him about humility, he will teach me about other things, and my life will never stop improving.

I was prophesying today, and I heard myself say not to strive with my relatives and that God would give my wife and me abundance for whatever they took from us. I don’t think the words came from my imagination. I intend to play things that way, so I suppose we will find out.

It doesn’t matter. God keeps taking great care of us.

You should be very happy when demonized people vomit their venom at you. It’s a tremendous honor, and it shows the demons are afraid of you. It shows you’re better off than the people who try to rattle you. I was thinking about it in the kitchen this morning, and for a minute, I actually felt like dancing. I am not a dance-prone person. Much the opposite. I surprised myself.