Hergest Ridge

Just discovered WordPress’ quick link on the dashboard for writing a new post. Still looking for the time and energy to keep up with Hergest Ridge, and the other writing project. There is no easy time to step away from the day to day and start investing in something long term, which might not pan out despite best efforts…

Work is steady and plenty, so are the credit card interests. Just had a long conversation with the company rep regarding the protection I should purchase in case unable to make payments due to illness. I politely declined after being casually told the service is being added (no questions here), and was told it’s a swell plan which can be canceled after a month. Again, I declined and even explained already being over insured. Still told that I am getting the plan added, I asked if it is now a requirement. No. Then I don’t want it. But I bet the next statement will include a charge for it which I will have to call about and remove.

Tried paying a couple folks to help out with the workload, but got nowhere for now. Would really like to have some time to create and release a series of WordPress themes, each theme named after a woman than inspired. Emilie and Vegetal would likely be first. I can think of a few others.

A couple hours of marketing writing await. Design work for clients too. Despite all, another success in stepping back for a moment to do something more meaningful.

Brash Remarks on how the cure takes another life:

• They came with knives, left with guns.
• Bowling for NY, Airborne, a 9/11/01 prequel series.
• Guns in untrained hands, and not just Cheney’s.
• Escalating fire power - competition for more power in an H3 era.
• Cruel intentions: They’re easy to spot. Like Big Foot.
• Judge, jury, trigger man - “Baby on Board” parent decides.
• Harpooning a shark in a pool teeming with dolphins.
  What could go wrong?
• In Wal-Mart’s gun aisle, looking for anti-depressants.
  I’m OK - You’re OK.

Interesting, how the proposed true freedom reduces the bad guys to box cutters, with the nanny ready to feed a lead sandwich - as good or better than the wider highways idea to curb global warming through less idling and waiting. Obviously, one of the greatest human limitations comes from those able to consider a single factor in complex situations.

Heidi Baker has seen food multiply and more than a hundred people raised from the dead, the latter event described by the Christian Broadcasting Network host as “an incredible resurrection power-move by God.”

“We didn’t have enough chicken.” The cook now announced he was cooking fish. “They want chicken, so we prayed for chicken, and everybody ate chicken.” Later, bags and bags of chicken were taken home. Imagine the poor and dying children of northern Mozambique fretting over the Christmas menu. And just how do the poor and starving out there tell the difference between chicken and fish? Miracles abound when Heidi is around.

“It’s documented - god just made more chicken for us. Whether it flew in, or…” The host interrupted and the flying chickens joined the ‘divine secrets’ rank.

Ready for another miracle?

“I looked into the eyes of the girls and asked them what they want” for the girls didn’t want the stuffed toys. They instead asked for beads - stuffed toys are sooo passé in Mozambique, and next year if we cannot bring caviar and iPhones, Westerners might as well take their gifts and keel over in shame and for being useless.

Those ungrateful bastard children were first unwilling to eat fish, and now can’t even say “thank you” and shut up.

“I told my friend to look in the garbage bag and pull out what is there, and there were beads in the bag, because god cares.” Heidi just knew - no easter egg hunt for the beads.

How have these miracles changed how Mozambique sees Jesus?

“They know he is real. Hundreds of hundreds and thousands of syncretistic Muslims are getting saved everyday. We don’t even preach, we just say bring us the deaf, and the deaf person hears and then they just say ‘Yeees, we want Jesus!’ “

The poor of Mozambique need Jesus like the natives of North America needed the blankets from the white man. And we all need Jesus like another hole in the body. The notion of Jesus often maims and kills, with the healing left to the ER. The Spaniards of the roughly 350 years starting 1478 will attest, and 150,000 (an estimate from García Cárcel) people can’t be wrong. (Well, yes they can, but just take my word for it or read the daily news.)

The miracles happen “week, after week, after week, among those in northern Mozambique.” While Heidi is raising the dead with prayers, her husband Rolland “left Mozambique for the United States last November for prayer, treatment and rest. During this time he has been under the care of several doctors and has been meeting with counselors.”

The first one to argue for miracles in a context other than ‘a useful tool to oppress’ gets to wear a very pointy hat, and substitute for the poster in a game of “pin the tail.” As for the modern day con woman Heidi Baker with an historical act, I hope that hell does really exist.

Many folks are quick to admire with vigour and detail at par with the particularity of a nuclear reactor blueprint. Personally, I find such admiration a tad bit, shall we say, radioactive? Yes, I think radioactive is a good description for it all makes me a bit morbific.

Having moved away from eastern Europe and the relative vicinity of Chernobyl, I am avoiding the nuclear kind of radioactivity fairly well, thank you. It’s this other kind of radioactivity that is consistently and constantly challenging my well being.

Most of my symptoms have root in the absolutism and assumptions which often accompany deep admiration. In the presence of admiration, absolutism and assumptions are often present and inseparable. They become quite evident when the claim “she always takes care of the needy” is made - the assumption being that even when the person is seen by none, their behaviour remains unaltered and noble, while the “always” absolute clenches the prize for “let’s run our nails down the blackboard.”

What I am trying to say is that maybe if we cease putting others on high pedestals, we’d better understand the importance of ordinary folks doing good things. If we stopped believing in supermen (and women!), we’d sooner roll up our sleeves and do the hard work ourselves without waiting for heroes to come around.

And with a little less admiration, we can have better relationships with more realistic expectations. Fewer people believing the best on imaginary or inflated grounds means less damage when someone does a dance with something pointy and dangerous. Surely something this chancy will cause less damage when we’re all standing on solid ground.

“We shall abolish the orgasm.” That’s one of the goals of the Party in Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-Four. “There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother.”

Of course, many have succeeded at abolishing the orgasm through various forms of genital mutilation. Hundreds of millions more - perhaps billions - suffer from tremendous guilt at thinking about, discussing or pursuing an orgasm. Many more are able to enjoy the sexual experience only under rare and unlikely to occur circumstances - all of this thanks to religion. God is the in details, you know, and when it comes to sex, and orgasms, and pleasure, there are a lot of details.

As long as humanity prefers a bad explanation over no answer at all, I have to side with the “religion will always be there” camp with which Orwell associated himself with.

There are many good reasons for discussing Orwell and his works anytime, but today there is additional one: Orwell’s initial entry in his diary celebrates its 70th anniversary this August 9th. It, along with the entries that followed, are being made available online starting today, each to be published at orwelldiaries.wordpress.com exactly 70 years after its conception.