Showing posts with label fundamentalists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fundamentalists. Show all posts
Saturday, July 06, 2013
Saturday, May 24, 2008
LONGING FOR ZION
I guess Texas's little pony show down there troubles me enough that I wake up thinking about it. "Troubles" may not be the word I'm looking for. "Intrigues" might be the more apt verb, for that little group of people poses many interesting challenges. Is polygamy necessarily bad for the human animal? Are their women and children actually being dummed down so that they can be controlled? And if the women and children are happy and not being harmed, should any of us care what their men do with them, how they train them and to what Biblical standard they indoctrinate them—as long as they agree to it?
Do they pay their taxes and are they available for military service should a draft come up? That may be all the larger state can expect of them.
I try to think myself into their compound, walk around in it, savor its sights and smells, but such an adventure is hard to imagine. I know their compound looks neat and clean as a whistle. I know one thing for sure—my free nature would rebel against that sort of control over my life. I was a total failure in the military mold. I can imagine the chains of gossip by which they control one another. I can imagine women teaching one another not to be jealous.
I can imagine what it must be like not to be allowed any really independent thinking from the group norm and being ostracized (banished) when one strays too far from the herd mentality. Banished—can you imagine the terror such a punishment would cause in a person who has been cut off from the main body of American culture and then forced to go survive in it? How would the banished one cope, find work, make friends? Being raised, cut off like that, would make it extremely difficult to function in the American body politic.
Of course, straying from the herd in the larger society also causes similar sorts of repercussions. Look at the "gossip" about and condemnation of gay folk and cross-dressers, for examples, in church groups. Look how we try to suppress them and regulate them and hem their behavior in.
And, come to think of it, look at all fundamentalists in their churches, striving with might and main, through non-association and through home schooling, to stay free of contamination by the freedom gene and thirst for new experience that thrives in those of us who have them. It's not an easy thing to be free. Most of the human herd desires to run around in carefully regulated groups because, when the human brain first achieved consciousness, that's the sort of social arrangement it found itself in and the atheist gene complex is fairly new, I suppose, and may not turn out to be the most successful adaptation. And even atheists group together for common protection and warmth of association. None of us are free from the need of companionship.
So there you go. I've just rambled a bit in an unorganized manner, here in the wee hours, because my mind was going a mile a minute, lying there in the dark. Getting up and attending to my consciousness's needs usually gets me back to sleep in short enough time. And I've got to be up at five this morn in order to go catch my plane for Ohio!
I guess the most salient point that emerges when I confront group (herd) mentality like that which controls fundamentalist behavior is how so very close they still are to the people that first made cave drawings. They haven't evolved quite like those of us who understand and accept freedom. The interesting paradox is that our founders' ideas about human freedom protect the very freedom that people longing to return to the herd (and renounce that freedom) are protected by.
So be it—if they are afraid to be as free as those of us in the larger herd choose to be free, let them huddle together in their groups where the male feels free to roam the herd for his sexual release. But, then, when I say that, I'm struck by the fact that the most precious thing our founding fathers gave us was a society in which a freedom to choose is given wide latitude and that women and children, raised in the constraints of Zion, do not quite get the freedom to choose that the rest of us do. Perhaps freedom is the only real reason any of us have to oppose Zions like theirs and fundamentalist churches in general—they don't raise up citizens who truly understand the wide range of behavior they have the freedom to choose among. And people who do not honor freedom above all other values are a threat to the "freedom to choose" itself because they don't want those among them, their women and children, to enjoy that freedom in the same measure they do. Their male freedom of choice is achieved by limiting the freedom of choice of the easily corrupted, because powerless, women and children in their midst. And that is a very scary prospect.
I guess Texas's little pony show down there troubles me enough that I wake up thinking about it. "Troubles" may not be the word I'm looking for. "Intrigues" might be the more apt verb, for that little group of people poses many interesting challenges. Is polygamy necessarily bad for the human animal? Are their women and children actually being dummed down so that they can be controlled? And if the women and children are happy and not being harmed, should any of us care what their men do with them, how they train them and to what Biblical standard they indoctrinate them—as long as they agree to it?
Do they pay their taxes and are they available for military service should a draft come up? That may be all the larger state can expect of them.
I try to think myself into their compound, walk around in it, savor its sights and smells, but such an adventure is hard to imagine. I know their compound looks neat and clean as a whistle. I know one thing for sure—my free nature would rebel against that sort of control over my life. I was a total failure in the military mold. I can imagine the chains of gossip by which they control one another. I can imagine women teaching one another not to be jealous.
I can imagine what it must be like not to be allowed any really independent thinking from the group norm and being ostracized (banished) when one strays too far from the herd mentality. Banished—can you imagine the terror such a punishment would cause in a person who has been cut off from the main body of American culture and then forced to go survive in it? How would the banished one cope, find work, make friends? Being raised, cut off like that, would make it extremely difficult to function in the American body politic.
Of course, straying from the herd in the larger society also causes similar sorts of repercussions. Look at the "gossip" about and condemnation of gay folk and cross-dressers, for examples, in church groups. Look how we try to suppress them and regulate them and hem their behavior in.
And, come to think of it, look at all fundamentalists in their churches, striving with might and main, through non-association and through home schooling, to stay free of contamination by the freedom gene and thirst for new experience that thrives in those of us who have them. It's not an easy thing to be free. Most of the human herd desires to run around in carefully regulated groups because, when the human brain first achieved consciousness, that's the sort of social arrangement it found itself in and the atheist gene complex is fairly new, I suppose, and may not turn out to be the most successful adaptation. And even atheists group together for common protection and warmth of association. None of us are free from the need of companionship.
So there you go. I've just rambled a bit in an unorganized manner, here in the wee hours, because my mind was going a mile a minute, lying there in the dark. Getting up and attending to my consciousness's needs usually gets me back to sleep in short enough time. And I've got to be up at five this morn in order to go catch my plane for Ohio!
I guess the most salient point that emerges when I confront group (herd) mentality like that which controls fundamentalist behavior is how so very close they still are to the people that first made cave drawings. They haven't evolved quite like those of us who understand and accept freedom. The interesting paradox is that our founders' ideas about human freedom protect the very freedom that people longing to return to the herd (and renounce that freedom) are protected by.
So be it—if they are afraid to be as free as those of us in the larger herd choose to be free, let them huddle together in their groups where the male feels free to roam the herd for his sexual release. But, then, when I say that, I'm struck by the fact that the most precious thing our founding fathers gave us was a society in which a freedom to choose is given wide latitude and that women and children, raised in the constraints of Zion, do not quite get the freedom to choose that the rest of us do. Perhaps freedom is the only real reason any of us have to oppose Zions like theirs and fundamentalist churches in general—they don't raise up citizens who truly understand the wide range of behavior they have the freedom to choose among. And people who do not honor freedom above all other values are a threat to the "freedom to choose" itself because they don't want those among them, their women and children, to enjoy that freedom in the same measure they do. Their male freedom of choice is achieved by limiting the freedom of choice of the easily corrupted, because powerless, women and children in their midst. And that is a very scary prospect.
Monday, April 30, 2007
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ENDS IN AMERICA
UNDER FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS
It’s not just George Bush who is a blooming tyrant and who doesn’t understand how America works when it comes to religion. These Xtian guys are very scary. The following snippet is from a Washington Post article:
[SNIP]
The spiritual ministry department of the National Institutes of Health, which serves patients being treated in the nation's premier research hospital, is in disarray and battling a lawsuit and discrimination complaints that allege bias against Jewish and Catholic chaplains.
In February, a federal panel ordered the hospital to reinstate a Catholic priest who was wrongfully fired in 2004. In January, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had found that he was the target of "discriminatory and retaliatory animus." Three other former chaplains have said that they also were wrongfully terminated.
They have accused O. Ray Fitzgerald, a Methodist minister and the former head of the spiritual ministry department, of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. They say that NIH retaliated against them when they spoke up and invented reasons for terminating them.
[PASTE]
Don’t you agree that chaplaincy programs have no place in public institutions? If Christian lunatics want to do that sort of stuff in their own churches, that’s one thing, but to be discriminatory with my tax dollars. . . ? That will never do. Sometimes I wonder if enough fair-minded and informed Americans still exist to defend America's separation of Church and State which these Bushies, tyrants all, are trying to destroy?
I GUESS PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE ISN’T A NEW CONCEPT
“Henry Ford, it is said, commissioned a survey of the car scrap yards of America to find out if there were parts of the Model T Ford which never failed. His inspectors came back with reports of almost every kind of breakdown: axles, brakes, pistons—all were liable to go wrong. But they drew attention to one notable exception, the king pins of the scrapped cars invariably had years of life left in them. With ruthless logic Ford concluded that the kingpins on the Model T were too good for their job and ordered that in future they should be made to an inferior specification.”
—N. K. HUMPHREY
WHERE I DRINK COFFEE NOW
The two photos are of coffee drinking places which I frequent currently—Starbuck's and Mon Ami. They are a few blocks from each other on Main Street in Vancouver, in a district that reminds me of the Garland District in Spokane. It’s called Uptown Village. I just finished Holy Blood, Holy Grail and am commencing Dancing Wu Li Masters. It’s a darn good read. Also still doing algebra problems to keep the logical parts of my brain from rusting.
UNDER FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS
It’s not just George Bush who is a blooming tyrant and who doesn’t understand how America works when it comes to religion. These Xtian guys are very scary. The following snippet is from a Washington Post article:
[SNIP]
The spiritual ministry department of the National Institutes of Health, which serves patients being treated in the nation's premier research hospital, is in disarray and battling a lawsuit and discrimination complaints that allege bias against Jewish and Catholic chaplains.
In February, a federal panel ordered the hospital to reinstate a Catholic priest who was wrongfully fired in 2004. In January, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had found that he was the target of "discriminatory and retaliatory animus." Three other former chaplains have said that they also were wrongfully terminated.They have accused O. Ray Fitzgerald, a Methodist minister and the former head of the spiritual ministry department, of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. They say that NIH retaliated against them when they spoke up and invented reasons for terminating them.
[PASTE]
Don’t you agree that chaplaincy programs have no place in public institutions? If Christian lunatics want to do that sort of stuff in their own churches, that’s one thing, but to be discriminatory with my tax dollars. . . ? That will never do. Sometimes I wonder if enough fair-minded and informed Americans still exist to defend America's separation of Church and State which these Bushies, tyrants all, are trying to destroy?
I GUESS PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE ISN’T A NEW CONCEPT
“Henry Ford, it is said, commissioned a survey of the car scrap yards of America to find out if there were parts of the Model T Ford which never failed. His inspectors came back with reports of almost every kind of breakdown: axles, brakes, pistons—all were liable to go wrong. But they drew attention to one notable exception, the king pins of the scrapped cars invariably had years of life left in them. With ruthless logic Ford concluded that the kingpins on the Model T were too good for their job and ordered that in future they should be made to an inferior specification.”—N. K. HUMPHREY
WHERE I DRINK COFFEE NOW
The two photos are of coffee drinking places which I frequent currently—Starbuck's and Mon Ami. They are a few blocks from each other on Main Street in Vancouver, in a district that reminds me of the Garland District in Spokane. It’s called Uptown Village. I just finished Holy Blood, Holy Grail and am commencing Dancing Wu Li Masters. It’s a darn good read. Also still doing algebra problems to keep the logical parts of my brain from rusting.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
THE TRUTH MIGHT SET THEM FREE….
[SNIP]
Rey's research was typical of a new form of historical scholarship appearing in Europe at the time, most prominently in Germany, which constituted an extremely serious threat to the Church. The dissemination of Darwinian thought and agnosticism had already produced a "crisis of faith" in the late nineteenth century, and the new scholarship magnified the crisis. In the past historical research had been, for the most part, an unreliable affair, resting on highly tenuous foundations—on legend and tradition, on personal memoirs, on exaggerations promulgated for the sake of one or another cause.
Only in the nineteenth century did German scholars begin introducing the rigorous, meticulous techniques that are now accepted as commonplace, the stock in trade of any responsible historian. Such preoccupation with critical examination, with investigation of firsthand sources, with cross-references and exact chronology established the conventional stereotype of the Teutonic pedant. But if German writers of the period tended to lose themselves in minutiae, they also provided a solid basis for inquiry. And for a number of major archaeological discoveries as well. The most famous example, of course, is Heinrich Schliemann's excavation of the site of Troy.
It was only a matter of time before the techniques of German scholarship were applied, with similar diligence, to the Bible. And the Church, which rested on unquestioning acceptance of dogma, was well aware that the Bible itself could not withstand such critical scrutiny. In his best-selling and highly controversial Life of Jesus, Ernest Renan had already applied German methodology to the New Testament, and the results, for Rome, were extremely embarrassing.
The Catholic Modernist Movement arose initially as a response to this new challenge. Its original objective was to produce a generation of ecclesiastical experts trained in the German tradition, who could defend the literal truth of Scripture with all the heavy ordnance of critical scholarship. As it transpired, however, the plan backfired. The more the Church sought to equip its younger clerics with the tools for combat in the modern polemical world, the more those same clerics began to desert the cause for which they had been recruited. Critical examination of the Bible revealed a multitude of inconsistencies, discrepancies, and implications that were positively inimical to Roman dogma. And by the end of the century the Modernists were no longer the elite shock troops the Church had hoped they would be, but defectors and incipient heretics. Indeed, they posed the most serious threat the Church had experienced since Martin Luther had brought the entire edifice of Catholicism to the brink of a schism unparalleled for centuries.
The hotbed for Modernist activity—as it had been for the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement—was Saint Sulpice in Paris. Indeed, one of the most resonant voices in the Modernist movement was the man who was director of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice from 1852 to 1884. From Saint Sulpice Modernist attitudes spread rapidly to the rest of France and to Italy and Spain. According to these attitudes biblical texts were not unimpugnably authoritative, but had to be understood in the specific context of their time. And the Modernists also rebelled against the increasing centralization of ecclesiastical power—especially the recently instituted doctrine of papal infallibility, which ran flagrantly counter to the new trend. Before long Modernist attitudes were being disseminated not only by intellectual clerics but by distinguished and influential writers as well. Figures like Roger Martin du Gard in France and Miguel de Unamuno in Spain were among the primary spokesmen for Modernism. (from the book pictured, pp.188-89)
[PASTE]
I own a dog-eared and beat up copy of the Dartmouth Bible that I use when I want to find something in a Bible that I can trust. A literate man, reading the Dartmouth Bible, can recognize the scholarship at work which began in the 19th Century with the German scholarship mentioned in the passages above. Of course not all scholarship is scholarship. Many fundamentalist Bible defenders also pretend to scholarship, but any literate person can recognize false scholarship when he sees it. When the “scholar” always refers to the “Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” whenever he mentions Jesus, that scholar is no scholar. The writer’s bias is obvious to anyone with the least bit of objectivity when it comes to Bible matters. Sad to say that too many average fundamentalists cannot recognize false scholarship when they see it because, frankly, few of them can pretend to any training in logic or scholarship or empirical methodology.
I still recall several debates with a young, not unintelligent, Christian fundamentalist who worked with me at Mackay Manufacturing. Time and again, he ran off to get a book of supposed scholarship that claimed to refute every attack on Bible inerrancy. I’d read the passages he brought to me to disprove my attacks on his beloved book of mythology. Before me was a work of polemic without the least pretense of objectivity. My heart sank because I knew that this young man was incapable of discerning Bible falsehoods when he saw them because his falsehoods were supported by a book of fake scholarship which he couldn’t see through either. I soon quit debating him. His ignorance was foolproof and buttressed with lies he could not fathom.
The forgoing, by the way, does not claim that all fundamentalists are mental defectives, but they are ignorant. The lie keeps them in the lie and all approaches to the truth have been blocked out from them since most of them were tiny tots. Fear holds them in their ignorance and the light of scholarship does not shine into their caves. If just once a ray of shining scholarship could enlighten their minds, they would not be able to turn back to the darkness of the superstitions that bind them.
[SNIP]
Rey's research was typical of a new form of historical scholarship appearing in Europe at the time, most prominently in Germany, which constituted an extremely serious threat to the Church. The dissemination of Darwinian thought and agnosticism had already produced a "crisis of faith" in the late nineteenth century, and the new scholarship magnified the crisis. In the past historical research had been, for the most part, an unreliable affair, resting on highly tenuous foundations—on legend and tradition, on personal memoirs, on exaggerations promulgated for the sake of one or another cause.
Only in the nineteenth century did German scholars begin introducing the rigorous, meticulous techniques that are now accepted as commonplace, the stock in trade of any responsible historian. Such preoccupation with critical examination, with investigation of firsthand sources, with cross-references and exact chronology established the conventional stereotype of the Teutonic pedant. But if German writers of the period tended to lose themselves in minutiae, they also provided a solid basis for inquiry. And for a number of major archaeological discoveries as well. The most famous example, of course, is Heinrich Schliemann's excavation of the site of Troy.
It was only a matter of time before the techniques of German scholarship were applied, with similar diligence, to the Bible. And the Church, which rested on unquestioning acceptance of dogma, was well aware that the Bible itself could not withstand such critical scrutiny. In his best-selling and highly controversial Life of Jesus, Ernest Renan had already applied German methodology to the New Testament, and the results, for Rome, were extremely embarrassing.
The Catholic Modernist Movement arose initially as a response to this new challenge. Its original objective was to produce a generation of ecclesiastical experts trained in the German tradition, who could defend the literal truth of Scripture with all the heavy ordnance of critical scholarship. As it transpired, however, the plan backfired. The more the Church sought to equip its younger clerics with the tools for combat in the modern polemical world, the more those same clerics began to desert the cause for which they had been recruited. Critical examination of the Bible revealed a multitude of inconsistencies, discrepancies, and implications that were positively inimical to Roman dogma. And by the end of the century the Modernists were no longer the elite shock troops the Church had hoped they would be, but defectors and incipient heretics. Indeed, they posed the most serious threat the Church had experienced since Martin Luther had brought the entire edifice of Catholicism to the brink of a schism unparalleled for centuries.
The hotbed for Modernist activity—as it had been for the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement—was Saint Sulpice in Paris. Indeed, one of the most resonant voices in the Modernist movement was the man who was director of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice from 1852 to 1884. From Saint Sulpice Modernist attitudes spread rapidly to the rest of France and to Italy and Spain. According to these attitudes biblical texts were not unimpugnably authoritative, but had to be understood in the specific context of their time. And the Modernists also rebelled against the increasing centralization of ecclesiastical power—especially the recently instituted doctrine of papal infallibility, which ran flagrantly counter to the new trend. Before long Modernist attitudes were being disseminated not only by intellectual clerics but by distinguished and influential writers as well. Figures like Roger Martin du Gard in France and Miguel de Unamuno in Spain were among the primary spokesmen for Modernism. (from the book pictured, pp.188-89)
[PASTE]
I own a dog-eared and beat up copy of the Dartmouth Bible that I use when I want to find something in a Bible that I can trust. A literate man, reading the Dartmouth Bible, can recognize the scholarship at work which began in the 19th Century with the German scholarship mentioned in the passages above. Of course not all scholarship is scholarship. Many fundamentalist Bible defenders also pretend to scholarship, but any literate person can recognize false scholarship when he sees it. When the “scholar” always refers to the “Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” whenever he mentions Jesus, that scholar is no scholar. The writer’s bias is obvious to anyone with the least bit of objectivity when it comes to Bible matters. Sad to say that too many average fundamentalists cannot recognize false scholarship when they see it because, frankly, few of them can pretend to any training in logic or scholarship or empirical methodology.
I still recall several debates with a young, not unintelligent, Christian fundamentalist who worked with me at Mackay Manufacturing. Time and again, he ran off to get a book of supposed scholarship that claimed to refute every attack on Bible inerrancy. I’d read the passages he brought to me to disprove my attacks on his beloved book of mythology. Before me was a work of polemic without the least pretense of objectivity. My heart sank because I knew that this young man was incapable of discerning Bible falsehoods when he saw them because his falsehoods were supported by a book of fake scholarship which he couldn’t see through either. I soon quit debating him. His ignorance was foolproof and buttressed with lies he could not fathom.
The forgoing, by the way, does not claim that all fundamentalists are mental defectives, but they are ignorant. The lie keeps them in the lie and all approaches to the truth have been blocked out from them since most of them were tiny tots. Fear holds them in their ignorance and the light of scholarship does not shine into their caves. If just once a ray of shining scholarship could enlighten their minds, they would not be able to turn back to the darkness of the superstitions that bind them.
Monday, April 09, 2007
ZACH JOHNSON AND JESUS
Well, I finally must admit I did see what a Christian saw at the Master’s Tournament in Augusta. Zach Johnson claimed that he owed his Master’s victory to the presence of Jesus all around him on Easter Sunday where, against all Bible warnings, Zach failed to keep the Sabbath Holy and worked at his trade. Why Jesus helped Zach win, I have no idea, but there Jesus was, helping Zach in so many ways. I personally witnessed Jesus reach out and tip the backswing of one of Tiger’s tee shots. Jesus also kicked sand in the face of Phil Michelson during another bad moment in the tournament for that past master. In a third case, I saw the Lord move the lie of Stuart Appleby. At another point, I cleary heard him hurling imprecations against Vijay Singh just as he started a putt. In fact, I saw Jesus everywhere, tipping the scales in Zach’s favor, with his swarthy skin and filthy loincloth, his bow legs and the tip of his enormous you-know-what hanging below the lower folds of his loincloth. I even witnessed the young but filthy god taking a leak behind a magnolia tree, which was okay, but when he squatted in a sandtrap on the 15th hole to relieve himself, I thought that was a little vulgar, but, then, Jesus probably doesn’t understand Master’s Tournament etiquette very well. I believe all of you who watched the Master’s must have witnessed many similar things from the Lord, for, of course, if none of us did witness his favoritism to Zach Johnson and his prejudice toward all the others, then, of course, this Jesus presence must have been an aberration on Zach Johnson’s part, the same sort of aberration one hears in the speech of mental patients usually locked up in institutions or at least heavily sedated with drugs. I do apologize to any honest schizophrenic if I have insulted you by comparing you to Zach Johnson.
WHY REPUBLICAN FUNDAMENTALISTS ARE SO ANGRY
[SNIP]
By Robert Preidt
HealthDay Reporter
posted: 01 April 2007
(HealthDay News) — While most people are upset or concerned when someone gives them an angry look, there are others—with high levels of testosterone—who actually enjoy angry expressions and seek ways to provoke them, new research suggests.
"It's kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for," study co-author Oliver Schultheiss, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, said in a prepared statement.
He said the findings may help explain why some people are so fond of teasing.
"Perhaps teasers are reinforced by that fleeting 'annoyed look' on someone else's face and therefore will continue to heckle that person to get that look again and again. As long as it does not stay there for long, it's not perceived as a threat but as a reward," Schultheiss said.
He and lead author Michelle Wirth measured testosterone levels in volunteers and then had them do a computer task in which certain complex keyboard sequences triggered different images on the computer screen—an angry face, a neutral face, or no face.
Males and females with higher testosterone levels than other members of the same sex learned the angry face sequence better than the other sequences. This did not happen among volunteers with lower testosterone levels.
The association between higher testosterone levels and better learning of the angry face keyboard sequence was strongest when angry faces flashed on the computer screen subliminally—too fast for conscious identification.
"Better learning of a task associated with anger faces indicates that the anger faces were rewarding, as in a rat that learns to press a lever in order to receive a tasty treat. In that sense, anger faces seemed to be rewarding for high-testosterone people but aversive for low-testosterone people," Wirth said in a prepared statement.
[PASTE]
This study was published in the journal Physiology and Behavior.
SOMETIMES A GREAT (BIG BABY) NOTION
Some days when some little problem has got me down and has me in a leg lock and is pushing my face into the dirt, I wish there was a big, tall woman in my kitchen, baking cakes, while I sit cross-legged on the living room rug, playing with my red, green and yellow blocks.
Well, I finally must admit I did see what a Christian saw at the Master’s Tournament in Augusta. Zach Johnson claimed that he owed his Master’s victory to the presence of Jesus all around him on Easter Sunday where, against all Bible warnings, Zach failed to keep the Sabbath Holy and worked at his trade. Why Jesus helped Zach win, I have no idea, but there Jesus was, helping Zach in so many ways. I personally witnessed Jesus reach out and tip the backswing of one of Tiger’s tee shots. Jesus also kicked sand in the face of Phil Michelson during another bad moment in the tournament for that past master. In a third case, I saw the Lord move the lie of Stuart Appleby. At another point, I cleary heard him hurling imprecations against Vijay Singh just as he started a putt. In fact, I saw Jesus everywhere, tipping the scales in Zach’s favor, with his swarthy skin and filthy loincloth, his bow legs and the tip of his enormous you-know-what hanging below the lower folds of his loincloth. I even witnessed the young but filthy god taking a leak behind a magnolia tree, which was okay, but when he squatted in a sandtrap on the 15th hole to relieve himself, I thought that was a little vulgar, but, then, Jesus probably doesn’t understand Master’s Tournament etiquette very well. I believe all of you who watched the Master’s must have witnessed many similar things from the Lord, for, of course, if none of us did witness his favoritism to Zach Johnson and his prejudice toward all the others, then, of course, this Jesus presence must have been an aberration on Zach Johnson’s part, the same sort of aberration one hears in the speech of mental patients usually locked up in institutions or at least heavily sedated with drugs. I do apologize to any honest schizophrenic if I have insulted you by comparing you to Zach Johnson.
WHY REPUBLICAN FUNDAMENTALISTS ARE SO ANGRY
[SNIP]
By Robert Preidt
HealthDay Reporter
posted: 01 April 2007
(HealthDay News) — While most people are upset or concerned when someone gives them an angry look, there are others—with high levels of testosterone—who actually enjoy angry expressions and seek ways to provoke them, new research suggests.
"It's kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for," study co-author Oliver Schultheiss, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, said in a prepared statement.
He said the findings may help explain why some people are so fond of teasing.
"Perhaps teasers are reinforced by that fleeting 'annoyed look' on someone else's face and therefore will continue to heckle that person to get that look again and again. As long as it does not stay there for long, it's not perceived as a threat but as a reward," Schultheiss said.
He and lead author Michelle Wirth measured testosterone levels in volunteers and then had them do a computer task in which certain complex keyboard sequences triggered different images on the computer screen—an angry face, a neutral face, or no face.
Males and females with higher testosterone levels than other members of the same sex learned the angry face sequence better than the other sequences. This did not happen among volunteers with lower testosterone levels.
The association between higher testosterone levels and better learning of the angry face keyboard sequence was strongest when angry faces flashed on the computer screen subliminally—too fast for conscious identification.
"Better learning of a task associated with anger faces indicates that the anger faces were rewarding, as in a rat that learns to press a lever in order to receive a tasty treat. In that sense, anger faces seemed to be rewarding for high-testosterone people but aversive for low-testosterone people," Wirth said in a prepared statement.
[PASTE]
This study was published in the journal Physiology and Behavior.
SOMETIMES A GREAT (BIG BABY) NOTION
Some days when some little problem has got me down and has me in a leg lock and is pushing my face into the dirt, I wish there was a big, tall woman in my kitchen, baking cakes, while I sit cross-legged on the living room rug, playing with my red, green and yellow blocks.
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