30/04: Sex lives of the prophets
Yes, the title is a blatant appeal for traffic. I’m shameless that way.
Or, okay, no, maybe it’s not quite entirely that…
Maybe just mostly. As I will, honestly, be mentioning that particular aspect of their lives rather briefly, at best.
It’s a bit slimy of me, I know, but then, you’ve got to appreciate the company I’ve been keeping lately, and the sort of negative influence it’s apparently had on my character. And a bit more more on that in a sec.
Anyway. So I got on a brief kick over the last week or so of reading biographies of founders of two relatively recent religions. Specifically, I’d picked up various electronic and hard copy editions of Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History, Russell Miller’s Bare-Faced Messiah, Jon Atack’s A Piece of Blue Sky—the first of these concerning Joseph Smith, the man who began Mormonism, the latter two on L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.
Oh, and about those sex lives…
Or, okay, no, maybe it’s not quite entirely that…
Maybe just mostly. As I will, honestly, be mentioning that particular aspect of their lives rather briefly, at best.
It’s a bit slimy of me, I know, but then, you’ve got to appreciate the company I’ve been keeping lately, and the sort of negative influence it’s apparently had on my character. And a bit more more on that in a sec.
Anyway. So I got on a brief kick over the last week or so of reading biographies of founders of two relatively recent religions. Specifically, I’d picked up various electronic and hard copy editions of Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History, Russell Miller’s Bare-Faced Messiah, Jon Atack’s A Piece of Blue Sky—the first of these concerning Joseph Smith, the man who began Mormonism, the latter two on L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.
Oh, and about those sex lives…
26/04: Check your sources, again
… on another subject entirely. And, honestly, this one is also ‘read between the lines, a bit’.
So there’s this story making the rounds that Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood-dominated parliament is considering this law that would make it legal for a man to have sex with his wife up to six hours after her death…
… Sounds a bit unlikely, huh? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not terribly fond of the Islamists, either. Not at all, even. But c’mon. Seriously?
This hasn’t stopped a whole pile of people quoting it, passing it around. Including, y’know, several actual newspapers…
(… ‘kay. So The Daily Mail barely qualifies as a newspaper, exactly. Anyway.)
Anyway, for what it’s worth, this is what is out there: al-Arabiya’s Abeer Tayel is quoting al-Ahram’s Amro Abdul Samea as reporting it’s a letter from Egypt’s National Council for Women protesting this…
Which, you may already note, is a bit convoluted. And note also that the al-Arabiya story doesn’t quote the alleged parliamentarians considering the law, and I note that the NCW site seems to make no mention of this, at least on the front page, so far as I can work out through machine translation.
… and, also, The CSM’s Dan Murphy thinks it’s ‘utter hooey’.
Shorter: a little skepticism is in order, here.
(/Or, really: more a lot.)
(/Updated: This Egyptian blogger says she follows parliament pretty closely, and that this has no basis.)
(/Updating again: The part about ‘farewell sex’, yes, is bullshit. The 14-year old age of marriage thing, not as much so. Details at link.)
So there’s this story making the rounds that Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood-dominated parliament is considering this law that would make it legal for a man to have sex with his wife up to six hours after her death…
… Sounds a bit unlikely, huh? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not terribly fond of the Islamists, either. Not at all, even. But c’mon. Seriously?
This hasn’t stopped a whole pile of people quoting it, passing it around. Including, y’know, several actual newspapers…
(… ‘kay. So The Daily Mail barely qualifies as a newspaper, exactly. Anyway.)
Anyway, for what it’s worth, this is what is out there: al-Arabiya’s Abeer Tayel is quoting al-Ahram’s Amro Abdul Samea as reporting it’s a letter from Egypt’s National Council for Women protesting this…
Which, you may already note, is a bit convoluted. And note also that the al-Arabiya story doesn’t quote the alleged parliamentarians considering the law, and I note that the NCW site seems to make no mention of this, at least on the front page, so far as I can work out through machine translation.
… and, also, The CSM’s Dan Murphy thinks it’s ‘utter hooey’.
Shorter: a little skepticism is in order, here.
(/Or, really: more a lot.)
(/Updated: This Egyptian blogger says she follows parliament pretty closely, and that this has no basis.)
(/Updating again: The part about ‘farewell sex’, yes, is bullshit. The 14-year old age of marriage thing, not as much so. Details at link.)
20/04: Oh, also
20/04: Please check your sources
I’ve no particular axe to grind on drug policy. Not one of my issues, really. I guess I might confess I’d probably be broadly for decriminalization of soft drugs at least, but it’s not like it’s a hard or seriously-considered stance, really.
So today’s CBC thing on 4 20 I’d normally have almost nothing to say about…
… oh, ‘cept for this one bit: they quoted a ‘Narconon’ ‘drug prevention expert’…
Yeah. Right. Narconon. Tip to reporters in general: before quoting anyone from Narconon, please Google ‘Narconon and Scientology’. And ask yourself if you really want to give these folk the credibility they could gain from your doing so.
A few news stories for your consideration, to get you started:
This one…
.. and this one.
That is all.
So today’s CBC thing on 4 20 I’d normally have almost nothing to say about…
… oh, ‘cept for this one bit: they quoted a ‘Narconon’ ‘drug prevention expert’…
Yeah. Right. Narconon. Tip to reporters in general: before quoting anyone from Narconon, please Google ‘Narconon and Scientology’. And ask yourself if you really want to give these folk the credibility they could gain from your doing so.
A few news stories for your consideration, to get you started:
This one…
.. and this one.
That is all.
20/04: Pretty much awesome
15/04: Resisting Arrest redux
… now with 80% more feedback squeal.
The occasion is: I’ve installed Rakarrack, a guitar effects processor for Linux, and it really did seem I could do so much more with that lead line.
Mind, what I really have to do is re-record that lead—or at least bits of it—tighter to the rhythm. But in the meanwhile, here it is with a Rakarrack effects chain beefing up the signal out of a plain ole’ soundhole pickup. MP3, Ogg (3:40; 4M, 16M respectively).
The occasion is: I’ve installed Rakarrack, a guitar effects processor for Linux, and it really did seem I could do so much more with that lead line.
Mind, what I really have to do is re-record that lead—or at least bits of it—tighter to the rhythm. But in the meanwhile, here it is with a Rakarrack effects chain beefing up the signal out of a plain ole’ soundhole pickup. MP3, Ogg (3:40; 4M, 16M respectively).
10/04: Today's words of wisdom
… via McSweeeny’s:
Words to live by, absolutely.
… treat your demons with the respect they deserve, and with enough prescriptions to keep you wearing pants.
Words to live by, absolutely.
09/04: PSA
There are still places where ‘blasphemy’ is a crime punishable by death.
Sign the petition. Please.
Editorializing briefly:
I have always tended to suspect that those who take the most severe measures to compel silence of dissenters—especially though not exclusively in religion—reveal in sharp relief their own insecurities.
My conjecture: they do fear their god is not there. They fear, beyond this, that others suspect the same. Their doubts and insecurities are the vast foundation of the whole of their lives, a vast foundation they seek their whole lives to camouflage and deny, and thus words that speak to those insecurities shake them as little else does.
They thus will become rude and shrill and incoherently bizarre, in the face of the words they want to thus silence. They will use any measure they can bring to bear to compel silence on the whole of the subject and all within a figurative mile of it, if need be. Knowing—or fearing—their god can take no action, they will take any action on its alleged behalf, if only to drown their fearful doubt, if only to hide their god’s otherwise too-obvious inaction behind their own criminal conduct. Even otherwise level-headed and sensible people will, indeed, make utter fools of themselves, burn any bridge, leave the baffled world around them wondering: what madness is this.
And no, murder is not beyond them, if they fear their idol may quiver on its pedestal, drop onto the hard ground and shatter, for all its presumed power, brought to such ruin by nothing more than the sound of your voice.
Sign the petition. Please.
Editorializing briefly:
I have always tended to suspect that those who take the most severe measures to compel silence of dissenters—especially though not exclusively in religion—reveal in sharp relief their own insecurities.
My conjecture: they do fear their god is not there. They fear, beyond this, that others suspect the same. Their doubts and insecurities are the vast foundation of the whole of their lives, a vast foundation they seek their whole lives to camouflage and deny, and thus words that speak to those insecurities shake them as little else does.
They thus will become rude and shrill and incoherently bizarre, in the face of the words they want to thus silence. They will use any measure they can bring to bear to compel silence on the whole of the subject and all within a figurative mile of it, if need be. Knowing—or fearing—their god can take no action, they will take any action on its alleged behalf, if only to drown their fearful doubt, if only to hide their god’s otherwise too-obvious inaction behind their own criminal conduct. Even otherwise level-headed and sensible people will, indeed, make utter fools of themselves, burn any bridge, leave the baffled world around them wondering: what madness is this.
And no, murder is not beyond them, if they fear their idol may quiver on its pedestal, drop onto the hard ground and shatter, for all its presumed power, brought to such ruin by nothing more than the sound of your voice.
(/It also goes almost without saying that religion especially will continually attempt to demand the silence of unbelievers especially—seeking to compel this, especially, by any means possible, and so it has long been. The reality is: they know too well if it gets even as far as an argument, they’ve already lost, as they have none to make. This leaves the muzzle their only option. Where they cannot murder, they will seek other means, some more subtle, though not excessively so. From assertions that it simply isn’t ‘fashionable’ to call popular superstitions what they so demonstrably are, through efforts actually to legislate against giving ‘offense’ to religious sensibilities, it’s all in essence the same game.)
09/04: Dear haters
I am not a ‘newcomer to Canada’ and I approve of this decision.
Oh. Right. And: even if I were, get stuffed all the same.
Seriously, we have a lot of traditions. So very many of which we could do without.
Oh. Right. And: even if I were, get stuffed all the same.
Seriously, we have a lot of traditions. So very many of which we could do without.
07/04: Twenty-first century pigeon
I dunno how common this is, but when I transferred in Newark, inside the very crowded terminal A, between coffee shops and restaurants and tired travellers flaking out on airport chairs, there was a pigeon wandering around on the carpet.
I’ve seen songbirds inside terminals before—believe the last time was up in the high ceilings of Dulles—but Newark’s terminal A near gate 26 seems so much less the sort of place for an avian encounter. It’s a low, crowded, carpeted departure lounge. I almost stepped on the little guy, zipping through.
But hey, maybe s/he was just waiting for a flight, same as me. And how very species-ist of me to be at all surprised.
Anyway, this bit—a slightly modified twelve bar blues at 130 bpm done on a virtual acid house rack on my Nexus*—is hereby named in honour of our fine, feathered commuter. Allow me to present Twenty-First Century Pigeon. 4:17. Ogg, MP3. 16M, 4M, respectively.
… and I’m back now. At the hill. There’s a few things still open. May try to get in a few runs tomorrow. It’s all over Monday, apparently. Another victim of this part of North America’s freakishly warm March.
(*/Yes, Caustic, again. Don’t leave home without it.)
I’ve seen songbirds inside terminals before—believe the last time was up in the high ceilings of Dulles—but Newark’s terminal A near gate 26 seems so much less the sort of place for an avian encounter. It’s a low, crowded, carpeted departure lounge. I almost stepped on the little guy, zipping through.
But hey, maybe s/he was just waiting for a flight, same as me. And how very species-ist of me to be at all surprised.
Anyway, this bit—a slightly modified twelve bar blues at 130 bpm done on a virtual acid house rack on my Nexus*—is hereby named in honour of our fine, feathered commuter. Allow me to present Twenty-First Century Pigeon. 4:17. Ogg, MP3. 16M, 4M, respectively.
… and I’m back now. At the hill. There’s a few things still open. May try to get in a few runs tomorrow. It’s all over Monday, apparently. Another victim of this part of North America’s freakishly warm March.
(*/Yes, Caustic, again. Don’t leave home without it.)
05/04: Yeast Frog
You know the score. It’s the the usual deal. Strange beds, strange time zones…
So this happened, in the throes of insomnia. Also using Caustic. I’m calling it Yeast Frog (2:17, Ogg, MP3 — 6.6M, 2.2M respectively).
So this happened, in the throes of insomnia. Also using Caustic. I’m calling it Yeast Frog (2:17, Ogg, MP3 — 6.6M, 2.2M respectively).
02/04: Chicago/Houston/Phoenix
So I’m on this crazy trip to Phoenix—a trip which somehow has managed to stop in two additional cities en route.
Next time, I must remember to look a little closer at the itinerary the travel tool spits out, yes.
Anyway. Following this tradition I’ve now established—and thus continuing my series of pieces composed and sequenced entirely while airborne—I hereby present not one but two new entries. As, hey, if you’re stuck in the air that long, you really might as well*.
First—done on the leg between Chicago and Houston—behold ‘Overpackaged’ (2:33, Ogg/MP3—7.4 and 2.4 MB respectively).
Second—done between Houston and Phoenix—we have ‘Walkabout’ (2:34, Ogg/MP3—7.7 and 2.4 MB respectively).
Both of these I did entirely using my phone—such are the wonders of ‘Caustic‘—a clever little bit of ‘ware that makes possible such peculiar endeavours.
Next time, I must remember to look a little closer at the itinerary the travel tool spits out, yes.
Anyway. Following this tradition I’ve now established—and thus continuing my series of pieces composed and sequenced entirely while airborne—I hereby present not one but two new entries. As, hey, if you’re stuck in the air that long, you really might as well*.
First—done on the leg between Chicago and Houston—behold ‘Overpackaged’ (2:33, Ogg/MP3—7.4 and 2.4 MB respectively).
Second—done between Houston and Phoenix—we have ‘Walkabout’ (2:34, Ogg/MP3—7.7 and 2.4 MB respectively).
Both of these I did entirely using my phone—such are the wonders of ‘Caustic‘—a clever little bit of ‘ware that makes possible such peculiar endeavours.
(*/Making this a sensible enough tradition, I’d add—given that airborne time tends to be downtime anyway—especially on flights—like these ones—without wi-fi—somewhat easing my guilt at spending time on something like this.)
