Earthquake
An earthquake is coming to the southeastern United States.
Deathbed Salvation
Many non-believers scoff at the notion of deathbead salvation. Some consider it unjust, a self-serving means to an end, or an act of fear. But ultimately it makes perfect sense if one understands the subtext of salvation which is not simply the avoidance of punishment for our musdeeds but rather restoration of humankind to fellowship with God. The essence of homo sapien’s free will is that we choose everything on the spectrum of life choices from career and criminality. And everyone’s choices reflect a personal journey toward enlightenment. For some, wisdom comes naturally while for others wisdom comes stubbornly. Regardless of how fast or how slow and how naturally or how stubbornly it comes, ultimately God is simply looking for us to come to a point where we acknowledge that we are but mere mortals whose greatest function is to worship the one and only supreme God of the universe. That is what salvation is: humbling ourselves from our own self-constructed pinnacle of intellect. It is a conscious admission that we must realize out of our free will. Salvation only requires this one act of humble worship. Whether it takes a lifetime to reach this conclusion does not negate its efficacy.
More Thoughts on Death Penalty
I just finished watching The Ted Bundy Tapes on Netflix and I am conflicted more than ever by the death penalty. How does homocide remedy homicide? To what degree is the death penalty entrenched in antiquated Judeo-Christian religiosity? And what do the evolved states of those religions say about the preciousness of life? Does the Talmud not teach that to save one life is to save the whole world? Did Christ not teach that even the most wretched life is still worth sparing? And to what degree is pronouncing the death penalty our attempt to vangloriously exalt ourselves to equality with God to decide who should live and who should die? I think that as a society the death penalty must exist as the ultimate repudiation and condemnation of intolerable crime. But as a civilization, should we not then immediately commute that death sentence to exile (which is to say, prison)? We euthanize animals in the name of compassion, but we refuse that same compassion to those agonizing in the throes of slow natural death. Yet we force death upon those we condemn in the name of justice for the victims. Is that just a reverse–and a perverse–euthanasia? Using death in the name of compassion, not for the one dying, but for the one already dead? More death does not reverse the finality of the a priori death. And no, I haven’t been the victim of anyone like Ted Bundy, but I can say that the natural death of the alcoholic who terrorized my childhood brought me neither pleasure nor displeasure. His death closed the cover of an open book, but it did not erase the contents of the chapters.
The Story of the Women’s Restroom
Separate areas with sofas, vanities, and even writing tables used to put the “rest” in women’s restrooms. Why were these spaces built, and why did they vanish? Read City Lab’s story titled The Glamorous, Sexist History of the Women’s Restroom Lounge
Middle Finger Is Protected Speech
Though already strongly suggested by Cohen v. California and Houston v. Hill, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has now specifically recognized that a Michigan woman who flipped off a cop after receiving a traffic ticket was exercising her protected free speech pursuant to the First and Fourteenth Amendments.Continue Reading
God Isn’t the Author of Confusion?
Many years ago someone whipped out the “God is not the author of confusion” line on me to justify her position. In the moment I disagreed with her application of the principle, but I could not soundly refute it either. I failed to recognize the logical fallacy; she failed to consider the implications of her statement.Continue Reading
Three Types of Denizens
It would seem that there are three types of people: cowards who run from risk, fools who ignore risk, and agents who accept risk. Vox
More Enthusiasm for Sport Than for One’s “Neighbor”?
I just stumbled upon a 1970s or 1980s Billy Graham crusade. He said: “here in this stadium when you have a football game, if you’re really for Texas Tech you’re really gonna shout loud when they make a touchdown and the man who loves his neighbor the most will fight all that hurts and deprives and oppresses his neighbor. Paul said, ‘who is offended and I burn not?'”Continue Reading
Warning: Iliana Rivera Sutton & Aha! Interpreting Solutions, LLC
I caution every person, every businesses, and every agency against contracting or employing Iliana Sutton and/or her “company” Aha! Interpreting Solutions, LLC. My personal experience has been that she has grave financial problems and zero credibility. IIiana is as truthful as Pinocchio and as successful as poor Geppetto.
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Homo Sapien
Is being “sapien” homo’s Achilles’ heel? Homo sapien’s life might be an easier existence but is it a better existence? Shouldn’t it be preferable to live in a state of nature? So is our sapienhood a perversity of evolution or a cruelty of creation?Continue Reading
Hypocrisy of a “Christian Nation”
It is ridiculous and incredible that as a popularly-styled “Christian Nation” American society requires laws compelling compassion and fairness (by way of example, Colorado’s and Washington State’s laws on public accommodations). While the government should not dictate the conscientious objections of private enterprise, neither should private enterprise be allowed to hatefully mistreat a class of people. Continue Reading
A Guy’s Guide to Basic Aesthetic Improvement
A man need not be “trans” or “metro” to want to present his most attractive self to the world. After all, men shave (or shape) their facial hair and style their hair in a manner that they see as enhancing their aesthetic. I do not want suggest that all men wear full-on cosmetics, but having some knowhow in a back pocket and some basic tools in a gearbag can really prove useful! After all, ho hasn’t had a important photo scheduled or a really big date planned or a really big presentation prepared only to see a giant pimple, an ingrown hair, or a boneheaded razor nick in the bathroom mirror?Continue Reading
More Reporting on Sex-Segregated Toilets
Though it offers nothing not already contained in the research and publications of Univ. of Utah law professor Terry Kogan, Time magazine’s Why Do We Have Men’s and Women’s Bathrooms? is still a good, medium-length read.
Phuket Disaster
There is a disaster on the horizon for Phuket, Thailand. Thousands dead and injured.
On Righteous Boundaries
We made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther! Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek VIII
Which calls to mind this other memorable performance from the TV series.
Laws & Outlaws
I stumbled upon a politician’s Facebook meme yesterday that employed at least a hundred words to restate a very succinct bumper sticker of the 1980 : “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” This truth—that laws only regulate the law-abiding—is not true only of guns.Continue Reading
There is truth to be found in Facebook
Amadou Diallo
In February 1999, four plain-clothes New York City cops shot and killed 23 year-old African immigrant Amadou Diallo more than 40 times in the doorway of his own home. Diallo was unarmed. The cops were acquitted of second degree murder.Continue Reading
Double Standards
I was just recalling an incident from several months ago at a local club (this event was still a few months before the time a female police reached under my skirt at this same club). I rocking an awesome 15″ Gap or Ralph Lauren chino skirt. I found myself speaking with a group of three or four females when one of them rather abruptly asks me, “what do you have on under your skirt?”Continue Reading
On Eating Shit
If you must eat shit and die…be grateful that you received a last meal. Vox
All Clothing Is Unisex
Wow, check out the replies and comments!
All clothing is unisex if you stop being a little bitch about it
— Saint Sims (@SimsJoseph) August 23, 2018
Lesbians and Transwomen — Part 1
Without judging the writer, let me say that am a little baffled by this opinion piece that I stumbled upon just now. Perhaps it is simply that, being neither ciswoman nor transwoman, I am unable to relate to the argument of “Lesbians need to get the L out of the LGBT+ community.” That said, I think the author is defending a ciswoman’s right to be exclusively attracted to ciswomen. Taking the role of spokesperson for like-minded lesbians, she complains of pressure form gay and/or transgender community to consider transwomen as romantic candidates. With the caveat that no one has a right dismissively label another person’s opinion, I find myself in conflicting (dis)agreement. Continue Reading
Selective Cognition
It occurs to me that the longstanding phrase “selective hearing” does not convey greater disconnects. In addition to “selective hearing (audition),” one should contemplate “selection seeing (vision),” and, worst of all, “selective thinking (cognition).”
Simultaneous Misogyny and Misandry?
I found myself in a brief conversation today about gender roles. Specifically, the topic was equitable division of labor in the family, that is, where one spouse or partner is the career breadwinner and the other is the homemaker. All available indicators point to the thriving gender bias that men are expected to be breadwinners and women, the homemakers. But this tacit social norm is simultaneously misandrist and misogynist. Continue Reading