Sunday, November 8, 2015
Isn't That Just Ducky!
Hello there!
Can I have a treat?
No?
OK, I really wanted a snuggle.
Yes!
Isn't that just Ducky!
A Puppy Poem
You can't buy loyalty, they say
I bought it though, the other day;
You can't buy friendship, tried and true,
But just the same, I bought that too.
I made my bid, and on the spot
Bought love and faith and a whole job lot
Of happiness, so all in all
The purchase price was pretty small
I bought a single trusting heart,
That gave devotion from the start
If you think these things are not for sale,
Buy a brown-eyed puppy with a wagging tail.
Author Unknown
Saturday, November 7, 2015
SISTERS Saturday!
Happy Saturday, NiftyReaders!
For a little Saturday Inspiration, I give you Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen singing and dancing this classic number from Irving Berlin's White Christmas.
I'm excited to be seeing a stage adaptation of that musical this weekend at Drury Lane in Chicago. CAN. NOT. WAIT! The reviews have been fantastic and I was delighted to see that one of my favorite stage performers, Sean Allan Krill will be playing the role of Bob Wallace (the Bing Crosby role in the 1954 film version), so I am pretty sure that I am going to love this production, just because of that fact alone! (Anyone who was lucky enough to catch Sean Krill in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's spring production of Sense and Sensibility will understand what I am talking about -- oh and looky here! I happen to have a link to a glorious montage from that wonderful musical!).
This particular number has been one of my favorite film songs for a long time and since my own sister will be arriving tonight for a long anticipated visit, it is the perfect musical Saturday inspiration. The movie White Christmas has long been "our" holiday movie and this song in particular always brings smiles and laughter. By happy coincidence, the Drury Lane production of the musical coincided nicely with our visit and so we will be able to attend together. Yes!
Enjoy your Saturday!
Friday, November 6, 2015
Thank Gods It's FreyaDay!
The Inscrutable Cat
She crouches, a silent golden sphinx,
And thinks and drowses and yawns and thinks . . .
Of cosmic riddles old as Osiris?
Behold her there like a fur-swatched heiress,
A jewel-eyed hedonist whose mind
Is filled with the thoughts of her occult kind:
Herself and her own desires. In short,
Will I let her stay on the davenport
Or put her out? And dare she try
To capture a goldfish by-and-by?
Veiled and inscrutable, she hunches
And ponders profoundly how soon lunch is.
-- (Georgie Starbuck Gailbraith)
Greetings, humans.
It has come to my attention that you have been deprived of my presence for some time. This outrageous situation must be rectified at once, and I have instructed NiftyWriter to correct it immediately, on pain of my everlasting disdain.
The pathetic humans believed I would be mollified by their offering of wine and ridiculous kitchen linen. It is foolishness like that which causes me to despair for humanity.
Nothing can assuage the pain of such disrespect! However, I will condescend to accept tokens of atonement and abject groveling.
This is a step in the right direction, human. |
Going forward, all laps become my personal thrones. The photo on the right depicts a reasonably good start.
Although, I notice there are no delicious treats being proffered here.
See to it that I am left undisturbed for several hours. Your legs are numb and you need to get up? I don't want to hear it.
Have you forgotten that I have been ignored for well over a year on NiftyIdeas? Yes, I will never let that egregious fact be forgotten.
The world has been deprived of me for too long and it is necessary for me to take matters into my own paws.
The world has also been deprived of updates on the terrible twosome, aka Apollo and Artemis. This is perhaps for the best. They continue to display behavior unbecoming to cats and both of them bring shame upon
I shall commence redoubling my effort to restore order and serenity in the Kingdom of Freya.
Thank gods it's FreyaDay!
Look at those two. Just look at them! |
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Thorsday Tonic - Listen, Smith Of The Heavens!
Hallowe'en approaches -- one of my favorite holidays and probably the most eagerly anticipated event in the year for most American and Canadian children.
I'm just getting warmed up again after a prolonged hiatus (life happens, NiftyReaders!), and what better way to do so than with an amazing piece of music based on an ancient song to a Norse god? It's the ideal warm up for Hallowe'en, too!
Enjoy!
I'm just getting warmed up again after a prolonged hiatus (life happens, NiftyReaders!), and what better way to do so than with an amazing piece of music based on an ancient song to a Norse god? It's the ideal warm up for Hallowe'en, too!
Enjoy!
Lyrics:
Heyr, himna smiður,
hvers skáldið biður. Komi mjúk til mín miskunnin þín. Því heit eg á þig, þú hefur skaptan mig. Eg er þrællinn þinn, þú ert drottinn minn. Guð, heit eg á þig, að þú græðir mig. Minnst þú, mildingur, mín, mest þurfum þín. Ryð þú, röðla gramur, ríklyndur og framur, hölds hverri sorg úr hjartaborg. Gæt þú, mildingur, mín, mest þurfum þín, helzt hverja stund á hölda grund. Send þú, meyjar mögur, málsefnin fögur, öll er hjálp af þér, í hjarta mér. |
Listen, smith of the heavens,
what the poet asks. May softly come unto me thy mercy. So I call on thee, for thou hast created me. I am thy slave, thou art my Lord. God, I call on thee to heal me. Remember me, mild one, (or mild king. This is a pun on the word mildingur). Most we need thee. Drive out, O king of suns, generous and great, human every sorrow from the city of the heart. Watch over me, mild one, Most we need thee, truly every moment in the world of men. send us, son of the virgin, good causes, all aid is from thee, in my heart. |
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Snowy Evening...Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert Frost
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Rest In Peace, Maya Angelou
The world woke up to the sad news that Dr. Maya Angelou died this morning. There is little that a blogger can say about this amazing woman, that her own magnificent writing and the example of her courageous life cannot say better.
Rest in peace, Maya Angelou. Humanity is a little poorer today for your passing, yet you have enriched us all with your wisdom, grace and incandescent humanism.
And Still I Rise
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou
Friday, April 18, 2014
Crucifixion Friday - Easter "Joy"!
A torture/execution device is the universally revered symbol for the religion of "love"? |
Even when I was a practicing Catholic, I never quite wanted to "celebrate" the Christian remake of Easter. I was happy to celebrate spring, rebirth, flowers blooming, days getting longer, the Easter bunny and coloring eggs to symbolize fertility and new life - in short, all the aspects of the ancient festival of Eastre that most people enjoy celebrating at this time of the year. But the human sacrifice myth that Christianity grafted on to Easter has always repulsed me.
I think one of the most puzzling and disturbing things about theism is that belief seems to alter the human mind so that otherwise rational, good and decent people are able to accept a doctrine of "salvation through human sacrifice" without apparent discomfort. In fact, Christians not only embrace this doctrine as the truth, but they consider it to be a beautiful proof of the love of the Biblical god. Without any apparent irony, most Christians regard the story of the torture and execution of the son-god, Jesus, as the very zenith of joyful good news.
Oh happy day -?! |
The concept of redemptive blood sacrifice disturbs me on many levels. It disturbs me that people are told that humanity is in need of redemption - that we are sinful, "filthy rags" condemned by our very nature to an eternity of torture in hell unless we seek "salvation" from a deity - when it is the deity which they also believe created our human nature in the first place. More important is the chilling reality that people accept this vile, self-loathing doctrine. I wonder at the twisted psychology of a faith that teaches little children that they are sinful, hell-bound creatures, and then goes on to tell them that their only path to salvation must be through a bloody human sacrifice that allegedly occurred 2000 years ago.
It disturbs me that the deity that millions of people worship is believed to require a blood sacrifice to expiate the sinfulness of its own creation in the first place. It seems incredible that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god - whose alleged desire is to welcome humanity into its presence - would deliberately create humankind with a curious, independent and impulsively immature nature and then subject the first humans to a life or death test which requires incuriousness, unquestioning obedience and experienced maturity.
It disturbs me that millions of people worship a god that would condemn all humanity for all eternity because of the inevitable failure of the two prototype humans to pass that impossible test because of the limitations of the very human nature with which that god endowed them. It could make sense - albeit "sense" of the most malevolent kind - if people acknowledged that the god is a viciously manipulative tyrant which only fear compels them to keep praising and worshiping, but instead Christians insist that the mythical monster is a "loving" god.
It disturbs me that the cruel, capricious, psychopathic behavior which is the nature of the Biblical god - it is evident throughout holy scripture that God is all that and worse - must be called just, holy and glorious by its worshipers. Believers never seem to wonder why their omniscient and omnipotent god would require total, abject obedience in the first place nor why it could not - or would not - think of a more humane way for its followers to avoid eternal hellfire for the "sin" of being what they were created to be. It never seems to occur to believers that the deity they truly believe in is actually an awful, even evil character.
Christians refer to the Passion and Resurrection stories as the most "joyful" part of scripture. I understand that they think it is the most important part - indeed it is the very foundation of the Christian faith - but I do not understand how people can remain so uncritical of this "salvation". I find myself wondering how people can suspend normal human horror at such violent cruelty in this one celebrated instance, calling it necessary and good. Their insistence that a god that can do anything somehow needed someone to die a violent, painful death to satisfy its thirst for vengeance and that this capriciously cruel demand is the greatest love humankind will ever know strikes me as very sad.
Human beings fear death more than anything else. Al Stefanelli writes that through most of history, the horror of dying spawned many versions of the Savior story. Probably human beings then, as now, felt an awful impotence in the face of their inevitable demise and that sense of impotence may explain the continued acceptance of a doctrine of human failure leading to misplaced faith in irrational belief.
But, while fear and a sense of impotence may explain the willingness of believers to accept a savior myth, I feel that it is early religious indoctrination and psychological manipulation which leads people to sublimate their normal, healthy human aversion to wanton cruelty and to accept the meanest of human impulses - in the guise of Godly judgement - with hardly a murmur of protest. Cruelty is called kindness, evil is called good and contempt is called love. Such is the bizarrely twisted Christian moral compass.
I suspect that the early Christian conquerers co-opted the pagan Eastre celebrations of springtime fertility not simply to 'win over' pagans to Christianity (they generally achieved this through intimidation and persecution anyway), but to make Christianity more palatable to the masses by entwining a terrifying and immoral doctrine with the more hopeful, joyful celebrations that most psychologically healthy human beings naturally prefer. By fusing the repugnant with the refreshing, Christianity keeps its adherents off-balance and confused about what ought to be the clear difference between goodness and evil.
I do not believe that the Biblical gods - or any gods - exist, but I do think that the idea of such a god - and the repulsive religious doctrines built around it - ought to be resisted by all morally healthy people with every ounce of vigor that they can muster.
Could it be that Christians are more uncomfortable than they admit with the blood sacrifice "salvation" doctrine? Maybe that explains the popularity of pagan Easter symbolism! |
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Thorsday Tonic - Changes
A little Thorsday Tonic for you!
Changes
Still don't know what I was waitin' for
And my time was runnin' wild
A million dead end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse of
How the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
Mmm, yeah
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Where's your shame?
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time
Strange fascination, fascinatin'
Ah, changes are takin'
The pace I'm goin' through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n' rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you're gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time
- David Bowie
Monday, April 7, 2014
Tuesday Tonic - The War on Easter!
Reposting this po(e)st since last year's version has been showing up in the niftiest posts list!
Mark your calendars, NiftyReaders. Today, I agree wholeheartedly with a fundamentalist Christian argument. According to online sources for Christian correctness, Christians have a big problem with Easter. The problem is that Easter is not Christian enough. In fact, Easter is not Christian or Biblically endorsed at all.
Hot cross buns? Abominations! |
The name “Easter” has its roots in ancient polytheistic religions (paganism). On this, all scholars agree. This name is never used in the original Scriptures, nor is it ever associated biblically with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For these reasons, we prefer to use the term “Resurrection Sunday” rather than “Easter” when referring to the annual Christian remembrance of Christ's resurrection. (What is the origin of Easter? ChristianAnswers.org)
Oh, those pagans with their "Happy Easter/Happy Holidays"! Unbelievers have been distracting Christians from the true meaning of Christianity's most important holidays for too long! Easter is all about springtime, flowers budding, bunnies, chicks and sex. So unChristian! Resurrection Sunday is about the story of a dead man who disappeared from his tomb and is believed to have risen from the dead after a horrific execution. That's more like it! Ask any Christian, he will tell you: holidays don't get much more joyful than that!
Coloring eggs? That's a no-no, Christians! |
And while we are on the subject, why do devout Christians allow the secularists to win on Good Friday, too? Why accept the politically correct - and frankly much too bland - "Good Friday"? Christians, call it what it is! It is Crucifixion Friday! It is high time that Christians admit to the rest of the world - loud and proud - that their holiday is about blood, torture and a terrible death, not the Easter Bunny, jellybeans and a chocolate coma!
And about those Easter Eggs. No, no, no, Christians. Do you have any idea of the depraved history of these pagan symbols? Easter eggs are pagan symbols of a fertility goddess! ChristianAnswers can fill you in:
Most children and families who color or hide Easter eggs as part of their Resurrection Sunday tradition have no knowledge of the origin of these traditions. Easter egg activities have become a part of Western culture. Many would be surprised and even dismayed to learn where the traditions originated.
“The egg was a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. They believed an old fable about an egg of wondrous size which was supposed to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates River. From this marvelous egg - according to the ancient story - the Goddess Astarte (Easter) [Semiramis], was hatched. And so the egg came to symbolize the Goddess Easter.”
Sneaky... but they're still eggs. Wrong, wrong, wrong. |
The egg was also a symbol of fertility; Semiramis (Easter) was the goddess of Fertility. The Easter egg is a symbol of the pagan Mother Goddess, and it even bears one of her names.
Do you hear that? Fables! Fertility! A Mother Goddess! The horror! Now, do you see why no true Christian should ever be caught dead dyeing eggs or participating in Easter egg hunts? Instead of an almighty (yet curiously silent and invisible) creator god, the humble egg has been universally celebrated as a symbol of fertility and new life for thousands of years only because those people chose not to know any better. Dozens of cultures who observed the natural world around them, recognized the natural cycle of birth, life and death and celebrated the life-giving sunlight, moon cycle (reproductive cycle) and motherhood in the form of goddess worship were clearly unChristian, evil and wrong, wrong, wrong.
Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies, jellybeans and marshmallow chicks are all very seductive. They seem like delicious innocent fun, but they are not. They are dangerous temptations down the road to unbelief. They suggest natural sources of life and, with those eggs and chicks and hens and such, they are also suggestive of all of the necessary and naturally-occurring components of reproduction. They suggest that the plants and animals on the earth - including human beings - are actually born, live and die without the aid or interference of any deity. Of course, throbbing, pulsing, thriving, living reality cannot compete with the power of fervent, mystical religious belief (right? amirite?), but why should righteous Christians risk it?
And just in case you didn't catch the recurring motif of feminine power in those evil, pagan myths, just look what else this flim-flam Easter/Eastre "holiday" is all about (according to ChristianAnswers):
Nice try, Christians, but no. |
The woman, the MOTHER (!!1eleventy1!) was worshipped! If ever there was proof that Easter is an unChristian festival, this creation of a female god is it. Any mythology that pays respect to women - let alone that elevates one to goddess status - autonomous, powerful and life-giving - is a mythology that is antithetical to everything that patriarchal Christianity stands for.
And come on, look at that silly fable! It cannot hold a candle to the 100% true, God-breathed, divine message in the Bible describing the singular Truth of Christianity: An innocent and immaculate young virgin miraculously gave birth to a son. The Bible claims that this son, Jesus by name, was the son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit (no human father) and that he was the promised Messiah - the "savior" promised by God in Genesis 3:15. Not only is the child, Jesus, worshipped as he should be, but his mother, Mary is also paid deference as only the Mother of God deserves to be.
Now, that is a story that has the ring of ultimate Truth™!
In the old fables of the Mystery cults, their 'savior' Tammuz, was worshipped with various rites at the Spring season. According to the legends, after he was slain [killed by a wild boar], he went into the underworld. But through the weeping of his mother… he mystically revived in the springing forth of the vegetation - in Spring! Each year a spring festival dramatically represented this supposed 'resurrection'...
Nope. |
Thus, a terrible false religion developed with its sun and moon worship, priests, astrology, demonic worship, worship of stars associated with their gods, idolatry, mysterious rites, human sacrifice, and more. Frankly, the practices which went on were so horrible that it is not fitting for me to speak of them here.
Exactly. We will speak no more about it. The Christian religion with its Son worship, priests, mysticism, belief in angels and demons, worship of holy shrines associated with visions of their gods, angels and saints, mysterious rites and liturgical human sacrifice ritual is so much more than this terrible false religion from which Easter has sprung. For one thing, Christians add ritual cannibalism after the ritual human sacrifice! Frankly, these practices are so obviously correct, righteous and good, that it is not fitting for any Christian to participate in anything else. The source of that whole springtime/ new life/ bunnies and eggs/ ickily feminine, fertility cultish, Eastery thing is a terrible, false religion. What kind of a legitimate spring/rebirth festival elevates a MOTHER over a son? Definitely not a Christian festival!
Easter is clearly an evil pagan festival which Christians ought to decry.
Absolutely not! |
One might wonder if there is a better way for Christians to celebrate Jesus Christ's resurrection, the most important of all Christian holy days. In retrospect, it seems obvious that it would have been a better witness to the world if Christians had not attempted to “Christianize” pagan celebrations* - adopting the name “Easter” (Ishtar/Semiramis) in remembrance of Christ. Jesus has been obscured by painted eggs and bunnies. Attention has been shifted away from spiritual truth and toward materialism (clothing, products and candies with the wrong symbolism). Stores merchandise the name of Easter (not “Resurrection Sunday”) and sell goods that have nothing to do with Christ's death and resurrection.
I couldn't agree more. Leave that pagan Easter business to the heathens, Christians! Resurrection Sunday belongs to you and Easter belongs to the rest of us. You glorify divine capital punishment, substitutionary atonement and human sacrifice - we prefer bunnies, eggs and chocolate. You keep the Crucifixion in Crucifixion Friday and the Resurrection in Resurrection Sunday and we will keep the Easter in Easter. Sounds fair to me.
† Read the Resurrection Cookie link. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.
* Can I get an "Amen" to this, brothers and sisters?
That's right, Easter Bunny, just keep on hopping right out of the Christian calendar. And you can take your abominable eggs with you! |
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