A Huge Guffaw, Thanks to Paul Begala
August 29, 2008
If you can keep a straight face while reading what Paul Begala says in this article, you’re a better person than me:
OK, real slow here…Begala thinks that McCain is crazy because he picked a lady with somewhat limited executive experience to be Vice-President…while at the same time, he backs a man with no executive experience, and limited legislative experience, to be President.
Your career in comedy beckons, Paul…
What I Wrote on June 7: Redux
August 29, 2008
OK, I’m on board; Sarah Palin for Veep
Watch the video (including a great riff by Glenn on the ridiculous cap-and-trade bill that will greatly harm our economy–while enriching government–just what we need):
Then go to the website. OK, she’s the governor of Alaska, but my oh my, what a great lady to balance the ticket!
Is it Sarah????
August 29, 2008
John McCain is set to announce today his vice-presidential running mate, and FoxNews is reporting that it’s looking like Sarah Palin!
This would be, IMHO, a stroke of genius on his part, and let’s be honest: I say that for one major reason, electability. The vice-presidency isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit, said some guy named Garner who served as Veep under Truman or somebody, but whose first name I don’t remember (making his/my point).
Let’s review the other possibilities:
Mitt Romney – Nice guy, but this puts two white guys on the ticket, and Romney, while competent, isn’t exciting. This is not the year for two white guys on the ticket. Deride that, if you wish, and it shouldn’t be relevant, but it is what it is.
Tim Pawlenty – Probably a better choice than Mitt; might deliver Minnesota to McCain, young and able, but…a white guy.
Tom Ridge/Joe Lieberman – Pro-choice. McCain would shoot himself in the foot with that pick, and lose big, maybe double-digits. If McCain is this stoopid, he deserves to lose.
Kay Bailey Hutchison – A nice pick, but that would give us four senators running, and having someone with executive experience would be good, even if it’s true that Sarah doesn’t have a whole lot (but a good bit more relevant experience than Obamessiah, I’d add).
I’ll tell you, Sarah Palin will bring to the ticket exactly what the Republicans need to win this election. If it’s Sarah–on the heels of Obamessiah picking that goofball Biden–I think we may see a massive, massive swing in this election.
The Latest from Mr. Vocabulary Man
August 29, 2008
“sy·co·phant”
Pronunciation:
\-fent also -fant\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin sycophanta slanderer, swindler, from Greek sykophantes slanderer, from sykon fig + phainein to show — more at fancy
Date: 1575
Definition: a servile self-seeking flatterer
Synonyms: see “parasite”
Used in a sentence: Olbermann and Matthews, who proved themselves sycophants during the entire Democratic National Convention, wouldn’t have surprised anyone if one of them had begun a sentence with, “Obama, which art in Denver…”.
Sometimes a Duck is Just a Duck
August 28, 2008
In fact, most of the time…
The Chronicles of Narnia; Pilgrim’s Progress; even Animal Farm; these are allegorical books, written on one level but symbolizing deeper truth meant to be understood on a different level. This is a time-honored style of writing, and much good has been done by such works. But there are some who seem to want to use this type of interpretive principle for the Bible, reasoning that since it is a supernatural book (true!), it contains “hidden meanings” and “deeper meanings” and “allegorical meanings” that we can find, indeed need to find, if we are to unlock its mysteries and understand its secrets.
To which we respond that, while the Bible is a supernatural book, it is not a “magical” book, to be understood and interpreted in ways that contradict the normal, ordinary ways in which literature is understood.
At least a couple things converge to cause me to write this post: one, another thread here on TNKZ has dealt with Harold Camping (that thread has finally managed to simmer down now), and went from my concerns with his penchant for date-setting (I consider that unbiblical and foolish) to his fanciful hermeneutics; i.e., his willingness to find hidden, allegorical meanings in the plain text of Scripture. Two, I had a conversation with my dad just this past weekend about this very thing, Bible teachers who seem to want to find “deeper meanings” in the plain text of Scripture, to see in historical narratives, for instance, some more “spiritual meanings” than the simple outworking of God’s plan of redemption.
But sometimes, a duck is just a duck.
Finishing my series on the book of Acts, I came across this piece from John R. W. Stott, detailing the silly allegorical interpretation of one “Bible scholar” who insisted that Acts 27, Paul’s storm at sea and eventual shipwreck, carried such allegorical meaning. According to this author,
“The ship is the visible church, whose history has been a voyage from ‘its pristine perfection’ in Jerusalem at Pentecost, through ‘much contrary wind and violent storms’ (persecution and false doctrine) to ‘its moral and spiritual wreck in Rome’, that is, in the Roman Catholic Church. Those on board are a mixed multitude. Some resemble the centurion, who believed the captain and owner of the ship (church leaders) ‘more than those things which were spoken by Paul’, while others, even in the midst of darkness, storm, and fear, listen to Paul’s teaching and are saved. These also throw the wheat into the sea, casting their bread on the waters, that is, broadcasting gospel seed far and wide. The crew struggle to undergird the ship (well-meaning people who try to hold the church together by union schemes). But they cannot prevent it from being wrecked, from being broken into a thousand fragments.”
Well. That’s a nice little story, but hopefully my readers will see the problem (or one of them, at least) immediately: the locus of understanding becomes, a la postmodernism, come to think of it, the reader/interpreter himself, and not the actual meaning of the text as delivered by, in this case, Luke. Using this approach, can any allegorical undertaking be ruled off limits? What’s to stop another “interpreter” from seeing in the ship “the world”, and building some kind of “truth” out of that? Answer? Nothing.
And that, my friends, is a dangerous hermeneutic.
Because sometimes…well, you know…
Unfortunate Metaphors
August 27, 2008
From a friend:
Funny Metaphors Used in High School Essays
Just in case you need some writing inspiration. Every year, English teachers from across the USA submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country.
Here are last year’s winners:
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
