Snow Day in Kirkland
By Jack Brummet
In silhouette
Against blue bisque skies,
Crows bounce
On the snow-humped branches,
Shaking snow to the ground.
They survey the valley
For prey
In dark relief
On the powder-white fields.
---o0o---
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Stop Internet Censorship—make your voice heard on SOPA and the Protect-IP Act
Make your voice heard on
SOPA and the Protect-IP Act
- Sign the AVAAZ petition: http://www.nosopa.org/2011/12/10/sign-the-avaaz-petition/
- Call or email your legislators: http://www.nosopa.org/2011/11/17/call-my-representative/
- Stir up trouble in other appropriate ways.
---o0o---
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
The Ballard News Tribune goes after The Onion
By Jack Brummet, Ballard Editor
My daughter pointed out last night that in their latest issue (and often in the past), it looks like The Ballard News Tribune is taking on The Onion. This issue is chockablock with examples, starting with the wack lead story. . .
My daughter pointed out last night that in their latest issue (and often in the past), it looks like The Ballard News Tribune is taking on The Onion. This issue is chockablock with examples, starting with the wack lead story. . .
click to enlarge
---o0o---
Poem: Lost At Sea
by Jack Brummet
The rings of the splash
Send dopplers
Into the void,
Widening and disappearing
In the cold and lonely sea.
---o0o--
The rings of the splash
Send dopplers
Into the void,
Widening and disappearing
In the cold and lonely sea.
---o0o--
Poem: The Vault
by Jack Brummet
You spend decades slowly
Building a vault with rebar walls
And titanium lining around your heart,
But your loved ones are safecrackers.
---o0o---
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Star Wars Porn Parody (this teaser *seems* largely SFW)
By Mona Goldwater, Adult Entertainment Editor
Combining, as it does, many people's two favorite things, doesn't it seem like this upcoming porn movie will be a blockbuster? They've done The Brady Bunch. Isn't Star Wars long overdue?
Combining, as it does, many people's two favorite things, doesn't it seem like this upcoming porn movie will be a blockbuster? They've done The Brady Bunch. Isn't Star Wars long overdue?
---o0o---
An uneasy, but productive partnership: Martin Luther King and LBJ
Martin Luther King and President Lyndon Johnson had an uneasy partnership, with some mutual suspicion on both sides. Nonetheless, they did work together, and accomplished much. On his birthday, many of us wonder what would have been different had Reverend King lived beyond 1968.
LBJ hands a pen to MLK after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964
---o0o---
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Painting — Ojo, the B Movie Monster
By Jack Brummet
[artist note: all digital;untouched by human hands. The source image was a photograph of the artist. I don't know if there was ever a horror movie with an Ojo or not. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen a horror movie with a Cyclops, either. That's just not right.]
[artist note: all digital;untouched by human hands. The source image was a photograph of the artist. I don't know if there was ever a horror movie with an Ojo or not. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen a horror movie with a Cyclops, either. That's just not right.]
click to enlarge
---o0o---
Saturday, January 14, 2012
ATIT Reheated: Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils
By Jack Brummet, Comparative Religions Editor
[reprinted from All This Is That, January 6, 2005]
My friend, Doc, recently detailed his involvement in the Rama cult (he didn't jump the rails, but his former guru, Rama, did). [1] He also wrote a couple other interesting pieces on Rama earlier in the week. Rama sounds a little like Marjo Gortner, Jimmy Swaggart, or any other charlatan with a good rap. He was prodigiously good at extracting cash from the flock. Interestingly, he hooked in a lot of software developers just at the moment when many software businesses were cranking up their acts and starting to make boatloads of money. [Ed's note: see: http://drstephencw.blogspot.com/2005/01/take-me-for-ride.html; http://drstephencw.blogspot.com/2005/01/rama-in-wired.html; http://drstephencw.blogspot.com/2005/01/rama-lama-ding-dong-home-page.html]
Thinking about cults reminded me of my Baptist roots. We were American Baptists. I'm not sure about the other Protestant sects, but our church had definite opinions on the other churches. The Jewish faith was well-regarded, since it was the cornerstone of the Protestant religions. I didn't hear much about the Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Churches of Christ, Grace Fellowship, Reformed Protestant, United Brethren, First Christian Church, Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal, or even the Menonite, Quaker, Episcopal, Amish, Shaker, or Evangelical Covenant churches.
The Catholic Church was regularly and savagely excoriated. I remember preachers railing against "The Cult of Mary." "THEY FORSAKE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR HIS VIRGIN MOTHER AND CONDEMN THEMSELVES TO PERISH IN THE FIRES OF THE GREAT DECEIVER!"
In our church, the crucifix was empty, but in the Catholic Church, Jesus eternally suffered, nailed to the cross. "THEY CELEBRATE THE AGONY AND MURDER OF OUR LORD IN THEIR STATIONS OF THE CROSS!! THIS CHURCH CELEBRATES THE RESURRECTION OF THE CHRIST TO HEAVEN."
"THEY DO NOT EVEN READ THE BIBLE! THEY IGNORE THE GOOD BOOK! THE NEW TESTAMENT OF CHRIST OUR LORD IS IGNORED!"
Confession was an excuse to sin even more--a free pass to perdition! Our ministers ranted against The Priests, The Nuns, The Brothers, The Bishops, and Cardinals. Most of all, they railed about the devil incarnate: His Holiness, The Pope, in his gilded palace, The Vatican.
The Reverend bemoaned "THE ABOMINATION OF THE EUCHARIST," the foul and damning Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and its perversion of what was clearly intended by Our Lord to be symbolic. Jack Chick, the infamous creator of religious tracts, would later designate the Eucharist as "the death cookie."
"THE CATHOLICS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE OUTRAGES OF THE SAINT BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY MASSACRE IN WHICH FIFTY THOUSAND OF GOD'S PRECIOUS CHILDREN WERE MURDERED! THE CATHOLICS RAN THE INQUISITION!"
There were, of course, also degrees of weirdness within our own denomination. The Southern Baptists with their prohibitions against makeup and dancing among other things, were considered a hopeless bunch of joyless prunes (even in our church, that went so far as to use Welch's Grape Juice for communion). Looked even further down upon were the Immersion Baptists--who took you to the river for baptisms, even in January. We did that only in the summer, but it was more ceremonial that doctrinaire. Still further down the line were the Foot Washing Baptists. At last you come to the Snake Handling Baptists, who were so out there that they did indeed feel like a cult. There is probably another splinter sect of Baptists somewhere, performing even wackier acts in the name of religion.
When does a cult become mainstream? When does a cult jump on the rail and become a church, or religion? I'm not really sure. Clearly, the Church of Latter Day Saints has transcended cult status and gone on to become the fastest growing church in the world (I think Orthodox Judaism is the second fastest growing).
[1] check out the links in the articles there--one to Wired and one to a whole (free) book on the Project Gutenberg site).
[reprinted from All This Is That, January 6, 2005]
Thinking about cults reminded me of my Baptist roots. We were American Baptists. I'm not sure about the other Protestant sects, but our church had definite opinions on the other churches. The Jewish faith was well-regarded, since it was the cornerstone of the Protestant religions. I didn't hear much about the Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Churches of Christ, Grace Fellowship, Reformed Protestant, United Brethren, First Christian Church, Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal, or even the Menonite, Quaker, Episcopal, Amish, Shaker, or Evangelical Covenant churches.
The Catholic Church was regularly and savagely excoriated. I remember preachers railing against "The Cult of Mary." "THEY FORSAKE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR HIS VIRGIN MOTHER AND CONDEMN THEMSELVES TO PERISH IN THE FIRES OF THE GREAT DECEIVER!"
In our church, the crucifix was empty, but in the Catholic Church, Jesus eternally suffered, nailed to the cross. "THEY CELEBRATE THE AGONY AND MURDER OF OUR LORD IN THEIR STATIONS OF THE CROSS!! THIS CHURCH CELEBRATES THE RESURRECTION OF THE CHRIST TO HEAVEN."
"THEY DO NOT EVEN READ THE BIBLE! THEY IGNORE THE GOOD BOOK! THE NEW TESTAMENT OF CHRIST OUR LORD IS IGNORED!"
Confession was an excuse to sin even more--a free pass to perdition! Our ministers ranted against The Priests, The Nuns, The Brothers, The Bishops, and Cardinals. Most of all, they railed about the devil incarnate: His Holiness, The Pope, in his gilded palace, The Vatican.
The Reverend bemoaned "THE ABOMINATION OF THE EUCHARIST," the foul and damning Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and its perversion of what was clearly intended by Our Lord to be symbolic. Jack Chick, the infamous creator of religious tracts, would later designate the Eucharist as "the death cookie."
"THE CATHOLICS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE OUTRAGES OF THE SAINT BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY MASSACRE IN WHICH FIFTY THOUSAND OF GOD'S PRECIOUS CHILDREN WERE MURDERED! THE CATHOLICS RAN THE INQUISITION!"
There were, of course, also degrees of weirdness within our own denomination. The Southern Baptists with their prohibitions against makeup and dancing among other things, were considered a hopeless bunch of joyless prunes (even in our church, that went so far as to use Welch's Grape Juice for communion). Looked even further down upon were the Immersion Baptists--who took you to the river for baptisms, even in January. We did that only in the summer, but it was more ceremonial that doctrinaire. Still further down the line were the Foot Washing Baptists. At last you come to the Snake Handling Baptists, who were so out there that they did indeed feel like a cult. There is probably another splinter sect of Baptists somewhere, performing even wackier acts in the name of religion.
When does a cult become mainstream? When does a cult jump on the rail and become a church, or religion? I'm not really sure. Clearly, the Church of Latter Day Saints has transcended cult status and gone on to become the fastest growing church in the world (I think Orthodox Judaism is the second fastest growing).
[1] check out the links in the articles there--one to Wired and one to a whole (free) book on the Project Gutenberg site).
---o0o---
Friday, January 13, 2012
Painting: Elizabeth Taylor
Painting with acrylic, duct tape, pen, marker, and Mr. T's left eye from a kite by Jack Brummet
Reminded of this painting I did because her movie Butterfield 8 was on TV last night. . .
Reminded of this painting I did because her movie Butterfield 8 was on TV last night. . .
---o0o---
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