honor and order in your own house

From the opportunities which fate
and my fellow citizens have given me,
as a Member of the House,
as Vice President and President of the Senate,
and as President of all the people,
I have come to understand
and place the highest value
on the checks and balances
which our founders imposed on government
through the separation of powers among co-equal
legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

This often results in difficulty and delay,
as I well know,
but it also places supreme authority
under God, beyond any one person,
any one branch, any majority great or small,
or any one party.

The Constitution is the bedrock
of all our freedoms.
Guard and cherish it,
keep honor and order in your own house,
and the Republic will endure.

— Gerald R Ford (1913-2006), from his final State of the Union address (01/1977), shortly after losing the Presidential election to Jimmy Carter.

a visual kit for the blood of jesus

Crown of Thorns

One Crucifixion Nail
Cat of Nine Tails Whip
Tabernacle Felt Set

Life-size Latex Heart Model
Kids Discover Magazine on Blood
Scarlet Cord with Tassels

Cardboard Ark of the Covenant
Cardboard Brazen Altar
Instructions to Make High Priest Costume

Instructions to Make a Temple Veil
Chef’s cap for High Priest’s Crown
Judge’s Gavel

Simplicity Patterns for Bible costumes

– contents of A Visual Kit for the Blood of Jesus, on sale at Kids In Ministry.

HIV and Bears

Nobody who has seen a baby born can believe in God for a second.

When you see your child born,
and the panic, and
the amount of technology,
that is saving the lives of the two
people you love most in the world;
when you see how much
stainless steel and money it takes,
to fight off the fact that
God wants both those people dead,
no-one can look in to the eyes
of a newborn baby
and say there is a God.

If we were squatting in the woods,
the two people I love
most would be dead;
there’s just no way around that.

If I were in charge, no way:
we need technology
to fight against Nature.
Nature so wants us dead,
Nature is trying to kill us.

The natural things
in this world
are
HIV and Bears.

– Penn Jillette, on Penn Radio, Free FM, Nov. 22 2006

purpose in life

We do not think there is a purpose of life.
If there were, that would cheapen life,
making us tools or slaves of a master.

We think there is purpose in life.
As long as there are
problems to solve,
hunger to feed,
illness to cure,
pain to lessen,
inequality to eradicate,
oppression to resist,
knowledge to gain,
and beauty to create,
there will be meaning in life.

A college student once asked Carl Sagan:
“What meaning is left, if
everything I’ve been taught
since I was a child
turns out to be untrue?”

Carl looked at him
and said,
“Do something meaningful.”

If you want to be
a good, kind person,
then . . . be
a good, kind person.

– Dan Barker (Freedom From Religion Foundation): Salvation

awe hardly tapped

How is it that
hardly any major religion
has looked at science and
concluded,

‘This is better than we thought!
The Universe is much bigger
than our prophets said,
grander,
more subtle,
more elegant’?

Instead they say,

‘No, no, no!
My god is a little god,
and I want him
to stay that way.’

A religion,
old or new,
that stressed the
magnificence of the
Universe as revealed by
modern science
might be able
to draw forth
reserves of reverence
and awe hardly tapped
by the conventional faiths.

— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

the people’s land, again

Glancing at the headlines
this AM I see
the Dems have at least
taken a few seats back,
maybe enough to give
them a majority vote
in the house.

I sang
“This Land Is Your Land”
to myself as
I rode my bike
downtown — I got
choked up
and started to cry.

Maybe it will be
the people’s land again,
someday.

– David Byrne, 11.7-8.06: Election day

trash for your mind

This book was SO moving.
It brought up a few
important issues,
like sex,
sex, sex,
sex, sex,
and guess what?

Sex!

It is disgusting how the
world has become nowadays.
It’s disgraceful!
God-fearing people,
stay away from this book!!!!
It’s trash for your mind and
brings up perverted topics.
You shouldn’t read this book.

We didn’t. It’s a book
of scandal,
corruption,
seduction, and
SIN!!!!

— review of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by Phlemabel and Raquebel, on amazon.com.

uncommon devotion to religion

A tyrant must put on
the appearance of
uncommon devotion
to religion.

Subjects are less
apprehensive of
illegal treatment from
a ruler whom they consider
god-fearing and pious.

On the other hand,
they do less easily
move against him,
believing that he has
the gods on his side.

— attributed to Aristotle

absurd silos

You have to be free to see
how absurd silos can be.

You have to see markets as
wide-open spaces opened
by ubiquitous relationships,
and potential relationships,
between digital devices
and the human beings
who use them.

You have to see
unrestricted possibilities
for the people
and organizations putting
those devices,
their applications
and their data
to work.

Those possibilities
lose their limits
once you set your mind
free of the notion that
a free market is
just a choice of silos.

– Doc Searls, Linux for Suits: Breaking the Matrix, in Linux Journal

we don’t want a giant banana

When you start enlarging things
for your stage show,
there’s that Spinal Tap line.

On the far left you have
U2 on The Joshua Tree tour
with just a couple lights
and that’s it. On the far right you have
Elton John
with a giant banana.

We don’t want a giant banana.

— Matt Bellamy (Muse) on the perils of large stage shows (via Net Music Countdown)