What's wrong with people?

I mean, really.


Duck Gets Order of Protection After Attack

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A pet duck named Circles, shot and wounded by a neighbor with a pellet gun, has received an order of protection to keep it safe, the first duck in New York state's Suffolk County to benefit from such an order.

Circles was in its owner's backyard on Long Island -- long known as a habitat for wild waterfowl -- when it was shot by a neighbor through the neck, said Michelle Auletta, prosecutor at the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.

Circles, a white, yellow-billed duck, was treated by a vet and survived, she said.

The neighbor was charged with animal cruelty. At the attacker's arraignment on Thursday, Circles' owners received an order of protection.

"It's the first case that I know of in this area where a duck got an order of protection," Auletta said. "And in Suffolk County, Long Island, it is the first case where an animal was included in an order of protection that was not a domestic violence case."

In 2006, former New York Governor George Pataki signed into law a provision to include pets in orders of protection.

(Reporting by Karen Brettell; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Philip Barbara)

-original source here

S.S. Comfort Zone

-I love that so much of the action in the New Testament takes place on or around boats ....

"Come," he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" - Matthew 14:29-31 (NIV)

Of course the name of the boat isn't mentioned, but ...

Pastors' Yearbook

- from today's "I wonder whatever happened to Pastor So-and-So" Department ...

I don't remember this pastor's name. But I do remember one Sunday morning he tried preaching from the NIV.

He got fired from the pulpit faster than cannister from a cannon.

I don't remember this preacher's name either, but he was the one who talked back to the deacons and said it was OK if black people and white people went to the same church. Meaning, the white people's church where the deacons were members where no black people had gone before.

Shoot, we even had a committee standing by to make sure we didn't mix pastels with earth tones when it came to painting the church restrooms.

The 2000+ year wait

Still waiting for archaeologists or historians to discover a text contemporary to the period that reads, "Then Jesus, and all the liars (including his mother) who later claimed he was crucified and rose from the dead ...."

No Greater Power Than ...?

Those celebrity self-help strategies kinda pale in comparison to the Resurrection, don't they?

Prayer List ... updated with one more Gimme

Think there might be certain prayers God enjoys, or even gets tickled about, hearing more than others?

I mean, with 50 million Prosperity Gospel expectees scattered around the globe it's easy to imagine God might occasionally get bored hearing, "I'm really in a hurry to get that new car ... so is the hold-up on your end?" and "I've been a Christian for almost two years now, so why aren't I rich?"

Wouldn't be hard imagining God rolling his eyes every time he hears, "Why haven't I found the person I want to marry?" or "How much longer do I have to wait to get the job I want?"

Who knows ... he might even groan knowing tonight 40,000 more people are praying, "When will you finally find time to tell me what to do with my life?"

Even mundane, ordinary little prayers that don't require a lot of thought can sound an awful lot like a Gimme List: gimme good health, gimme a new girlfriend, gimme some good grades, gimme a break with the mortgage company, gimme a 'Negative' on my latest STD test ... and then how about some extra cash for partying this weekend too, please.

But what about a rare prayer? A prayer so rare that it's easy imagining God immediately taking notice ... and answering right away in the loudest, most unmistakable voice, "Oh boy, you got it!"

Prayers like asking God to:
-abruptly & immediately end any un-Godly relationships or romances in our lives, even if it means breaking our hearts
-take away any material possessions or goals distracting us from him
-teach us to trust him alone ... by crushing mis-placed hopes and man-made expectations
-place us in situations where we're likely to be ridiculed for sharing our faith
-take away false conveniences and material comforts
-remind us that we are only caretakers, and that every single penny and possession belongs to him
-keep strong believers nearby to hold us accountable at any time, and in any place
-teach us, no matter how hard the lesson, that we were ransomed at the greatest possible price, and that the time we're alloted and the lives we've been given do not belong to us

Bang bang, who's there?

Letter from Africa

-excerpts from an emailing I received this morning from Joseph L. Rayman, founder of AOAACF/ AOF Missions:

"There are three things which Africa does not need.

1) More foreign aid from governments to governments

2) More planners who know the answers to the problems

3) More projects which give away things to poor people

I have worked in Kenya for 17 years and have spent periods of days to months in other African nations of Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, and Egypt. I have seen many projects undertaken on behalf of and for the people and have come to understand the motivation of those who fund and ‘run’ these projects.

As a Christian I am well aware of the proverb of either giving a man a fish or teaching him to fish. The first proposition of course feeds this man for a day, and the second allows him to eat for a life time.

I rewrite this proverb to say, if you give a man a fish he will:

1) Ask for tartar sauce (make this product high end)

2) Expect seconds with fries (ask for more stuff because we know fries are essential)

3) Invite his family over (they want to eat and could use a job)

The problem with giving things away in development is that it makes it near impossible to stop giving and creates a higher expectation and dependency and codependency as we feel better about ourselves as givers.

For projects to work we must have people on the ground who are already doing something positive for themselves. We must not introduce something and come on as the experts and fundraisers. William Easterly (White Man's Burden) states that there are Planners and Searchers. The Planners stand off, stand at the top of the pyramid, have a lot of money, spend a lot of money and get results which are reflected in the 23 trillion dollars which have been invested in Africa over the past 5 decades. Searchers integrate themselves within the community of people who are already doing things, spend a lot less money and realize the joy of seeing the community rejoice in realizing their own dreams come true.

For projects to work, we must not spend a dime without first finding out firsthand who is doing successful ventures within the country and how we can work with them."

Dr. Michael Johnson
World Gospel Mission

fuel starvation

"Their Eyes Were Watching God"

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.
For some, they come in with the tide.
For others, they sail forever on the horizon,
Never out of sight,
Never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation,
His dreams mocked to death by time.
That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember,
And remember everything they don't want to forget.
The dream is the truth.

Then they act and do things accordingly."

-Zora Neale Hurston

what every woman should know about men

-this ad arrived in this morning's slush mail ...

“You're About To Learn Secrets That
Most Women Will Never Know About Meeting And Keeping Great Men...”

"Inside you'll learn...

• What goes on inside a man's mind... and how attraction works for him.
• How to "cheat-proof" your relationship... and why he might be tempted.
• The ten fatal mistakes to avoid that most women make with men.
• What to do if your man has a "wandering eye".
• The differences in how men and women think about dating... and why
  most men want to keep you from being successful.
• The seven secrets to communicating with a man that will create lasting love and affection.
• The truth about men who aren't "emotionally available"... how to know if you've got one and what to do if you're dating one.
• The five things women do that annoy men and kill intimacy.
• The inside tips married women know about the tell-tale signs of a great guy."

Ladies, look: I'm a guy and that means I know stuff about guys. Obviously I'm not trying to sell anything ... so here's the easy, un-varnished truth about men:

Men Do Not Get It
They never have. Nor does the current version of Men come wired from the factory with the potential for upgrades, nor are there plans to include the "Getting It" skill-set in any future release of Men.

Neither can Men ever be taught, hacked or cracked to ever "Get It."

Men who do not GET IT are not defective, nor can they be returned for a refund or replacement.

A Visual Illustration of the facts:
A man can accidentally smash his thumb into pulp with a hammer, stare at the injury and instead of seeking immediate medical assistance, wiggle it back and forth to see if it's broken and then wonder, "How did that happen? It always worked right before."

And then look at the hammer as if it had tricked him.

But why aren't men emotionally responsive?
The truth is that the vast majority of men are incredibly responsive ... to sporting events broadcast live in high-def. Especially on flat screens measuring more than 60 inches.

(It's well-known that 72" plasma displays and 6.1 surround sound will bring tears to a man's eyes, every time.)

Conclusion
Expecting a Man to GET IT is like expecting a Woman to grasp the spiritual significance of a programmable multi-function remote control.

Kick Out the Egg Rolls

Disclaimer: Look, when you live on a boat it's practically impossible to enjoy a traditional Easter Egg Roll. Never mind the practical inconveniences, much less engineering an updated event (like trying to skip Easter Eggs, the way we skipped rocks at the beach when I was a kid; we're talking dire environmental concerns and heavy fines, too).

This afternoon when you get home from church, instead of chucking poultry by-products around the landscaping and making a big stinking mess, tune in to The Malaysian Grand Prix at 1:30 PM EST on SpeedTV.

I already know who won so I won't let on and ruin the surprise.

Did he mean REALLY mean that?

Yeah he did.

"Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
-John 2:19

"He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay."
-Matthew 28:6


Just go one time.

Love? who needs it

"The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love."
- 1 John 4:8 (HCSB)

"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him." - 1 John 4:15-17 (NIV)

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." [emphasis added]
- 1 John 4:17 (KJV)

"Mungu ni upendo." (ki-Swahili) God is love.

Oceans in Space

-from today's "Sometimes Common Sense Just Gets in the Way" Department:

"March 20, 2008 -- An ocean may be hiding below the crust of Saturn's biggest moon, Titan, teaming up with its dense atmosphere to cause shifts on the moon's surface, a study said Thursday.

"Years worth of radar observations from the Cassini probe showed that features of Titan's geology had drifted from a fixed point of reference, indicating that the moon's rotation had temporarily sped up, the study said.

"Powerful winds could be rocking Titan back and forth around its axis, meaning the moon's massive atmosphere speeds up its rotation speed and slows it down later in the year, said the study, published in the journal Science.

"But for the atmosphere to be able to change the moon's surface, it would need help from an underground ocean flowing between Titan's crust and core, wrote researchers from Johns Hopkins University, led by astronomer Ralph Lorenz.

An ocean may also be hiding under the surface of another Saturn moon, Enceladus, according to NASA." - Discovery News

PS. Titan's surface temperature averages a chilly -290 Fahrenheit.

Not the least little thing

One Sunday morning when I was a kid I saw a deacon do something in church that's still as clear as if it had happened last Sunday.

He grabbed his daughter (who was probably less than 4 years old) by the arm and began spanking her right there in the vestibule.

Like wailing away, whipping the tar out of her bottom, literally beneath the Warner Sallman "Head of Christ" painting hanging on the wall above the big wood table carved with the words "Do This In Remembrance of Me."

This happened after the service ended, as they were leaving the building. I don't remember what the sermon was about but then, maybe he hadn't been listening very closely either.

I still remember it was summer and his sport coat was powder-blue and her little dress was yellow. Her shoes were black and she wore white socks so it might well have been Easter. I was only six years old but what I remember most was the other deacons standing there watching, and not saying ... much less doing, a thing about it.

I guess they weren't startled or outraged by what they saw, because whipping a child during a fit of rage wasn't new, irreverent, shocking or contrary to their religion. Or even inconsistent with how they saw themselves as deacons.

--- ---

Took me a long, long time to lose my uneasiness about inviting friends to church. Much less tell people why Jesus wanted to be invited into their hearts so he could change their lives.
--- ---

"Well Joseph, you were little back then. You couldn't know the whole story and shoot, you just can't jump into a man's private business over the least little thing. Come to think of it, how a man treats his family is none of your business at all."

Baloney, Brother.

No man should ever treat his daughter like she's "the least little thing" --- and if he can't control his temper then he shouldn't be allowed near her in the first place. Much less serve as a deacon.

If a deacon showed up at church drunk, consulted tarot cards for answers during committee meetings ("Let's cast runes before voting to pick colors for the restrooms"), helped himself to some lunch money from the offering plate, suggested turning his wife's WMU meetings into orgies or opened the invocation with an appeal to Beelzebub you can bet you'd see deacons jumping in like they'd never jumped before.

All those things- drunkenness, witchcraft, stealing and adultery are evil sho 'nuff ... but fits of rage? Wrath? Well, what's wrong with blowing off a little steam, and smacking little folks around who can't hit back? Even if they love you, depend on you ... look up to you and worship the ground you walk on?

"Yeah Joe, but sometimes a kid needs jacking up, or you gotta light up their bottom, wear-out their heiney, jerk a pure knot in 'em, tear up their rear ends or take a peach switch to their behind till it bleeds ... just to teach 'em how to act and show 'em how you care."

Come on, Brother. Doesn't blowing up and scaring the bejeez outta people feel good deep inside? Down really deep, where it's dark? Oh heck yeah it does ... it's almost right there with sex. And Paul's real clear it's a sin to lose control there, too.

Galatians 5:19-23

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." - NIV

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." - King James Version

The greatest theological question

Here's just a few things I remember hearing (and seeing) believers quarrel, fight and yes ... change churches about:

-Was the earth actually created in 6 literal days?
-How old is the earth?
-Should women be allowed to wear pants to church?
-Should women be allowed to be deacons?
-Can a divorced man preach from the pulpit?
-Can a believer lose his or her salvation?
-Does the Bible teach the doctrine of a Trinity?
-Exactly what is "the age of accountability?"
-Should clapping be allowed in church?
-Is Sunday really the Sabbath?
-Should stores be allowed to open on Sundays?
-Which translation of the Bible should we use?

But none of those comes close to being as theologically important as this:
How many people are getting saved when believers stay busy arguing, fighting and quarreling among themselves?

"Oh well" items

-from today's "It was probably all just hot air anyway" Department:

LONDON (Reuters) - It is the one moment every man wants to get right -- and which London floor-fitter Lefkos Hajji could hardly have got more wrong.

The luckless 28 year-old's dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.

Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.

But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring -- and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend -- sailing away over the rooftops.

"I couldn't believe it," he told The Sun newspaper.

-from today's "It Pays to Keep Your Shirt On" Department:

(Reuters) - Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the call girl at the center of the Elliot Spitzer sex scandal, watched the potential earnings from her new-found fame drop by $1 million on Tuesday as old nude videos of her emerged.

Adult DVD distributor "Girls Gone Wild" discovered videos of a semi-nude Dupre, now 22, in its archives and plans to sell them on its Web site, a company spokesman said.

"Girls Gone Wild" had offered to pay Dupre $1 million to pose nude in a magazine it plans to launch but, after discovering the old footage, the company withdrew its offer.


-from today's "Every Fashion Tells ... On Itself" Department:

India's middle class is humming with "brand freaks" obsessed with luxury labels like Prada and Louis Vuitton, according to a February Washington Post dispatch, even though more than half the country lives in "abject poverty."

Said one super-consumer, "I'll spend my whole salary for a really swank brand and eat steamed rice cakes for the rest of the month."

According to the newly launched India edition of Vogue, the country's "Me Culture" has taken over, where, on an Ahmadabad road underneath towering billboards for Tag Heuer and Mont Blanc pens, barefoot kids with begging bowls tap on car windows. -original source

Vicki Van Meter March 13, 1982 – March 15, 2008

From the Associated Press

March 19, 2008

Vicki Van Meter, who made headlines in the 1990s for piloting a plane across the country at age 11 and from the U.S. to Europe at age 12, has died. She was 26.

Van Meter died Saturday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the coroner's office in Crawford County, Pa. Her body was found Sunday in her home in the Pittsburgh suburb of Meadville.

Her brother said that she battled depression but that her family thought she had been dealing with her problems.

all to VISA we owe ...[clarificatied]

Folks blessed enough to have been born in the United States, especially since the 1980s, have enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Kids born into the lifestyle of an affluent suburban household practically expect two new cars in the garage (if not two more parked in the driveway), expect to watch hi-def programming on a huge flat panel TV, expect to have cell phones, computers, entertainment centers, video games, iPods, new clothes every season, vacations, closets full of shoes, cosmetics and products, gym memberships, to eat out at least three times a week ... and yes, boats and all the rest.

We're so used to having and expecting things that we'll actually argue We're Entitled to a pre-determined standard of living. I mean, aren't we?

Heck, as Americans we even feel entitled to cheap gasoline. Not too long ago a friend described her feelings this way: "The price of gas isn't something Americans should have to worry about."

--- ---
I ran into Joe Sangl Sunday morning and mentioned that I'd watched In Debt We Trust. If you have even a single charge card in your purse or wallet I highly recommend you watch this film immediately ... before mailing in another "Pre-Approved Offer" or racking up another purchase on your Debtor's Card.

At one point in the movie, a married woman with children explains how she and her husband became hopelessly trapped in the revolving credit trap: "I grew up used to having things, and buying things with a credit card was the only way to afford them."

Actually, no: the point is she couldn't afford them at all. That's why she became trapped by debt. The charge card companies don't want you to live within your financial reality, no way. They spend billions on advertising to convince you that you're entitled to things ... and can't be happy without them.

But is there any such thing as a Happy Debtor at the end of the month, when all the revolving charges and interest come due?

--- ---

An awful lot of people suffering from charge card overload spent themselves into dread and sleeplessness because they'd convinced themselves that they were entitled to a certain standard of living, and that meant having lots of stuff.

They're used to having stuff because they grew up having stuff because their parents had stuff. (Remember for a moment that mom and dad had been married, working and saving for years to pay for- not charge- their stuff).

After watching the film the point occurred to me that while so many people, newly weds & singles alike, demand and argue their right to start off with the same material standard of living their parents gave them, I haven't heard many folks admit that their first expectation isn't having more stuff or achieving a certain material standard of living of at all ... but is attaining their parents' standard measured in marital trust, honesty, fidelity, intimacy and joy from finding, knowing and growing with each other in Christ.

Guess we're too busy pursuing happiness ... filling out charge card applications or financing a vacation home with a zero-money-down mortgage or finding a second job to make ends meet ... to even think about what we've missed in the chase.