Just a Music Moment (The Microorganism)

In truth, I can’t believe it took me this long. You know, as if I really need an excuse for a plague song.

In April, when your barge sailed through, I fell in love with you; alas! my paramour, alack! a stranger to me ’til the test comes back. O! the microorganism! O! the microorganism! Dive in the gene pool, down you swim, down to where the light grows thin. Flail, little fishies, flail if you can, but avoid the microorganism man. O! the microorganism! O! the microorganism. Caffeine, sugar, and THC is all the doctors are gonna find in me when they do the autopsy, the microorganism won’t get me. O! the microorganism! O! the microorganism. God is good, and God is great; God’s a big invertebrate. God made the river change its route, but He won’t pull the microorganism out. O! the microorganism! O! the microorganism! The cowslips bloom, and the bluebells to; here’s advice I’ll give to you: Rattle your sword before you strike, and never kiss anyone you like. O! the microorganism! O! the microorganism!

―Boiled in Lead, “The Microorganism” (1989)

‡

The End Times Shuffle (Bachmann’s Belfry Backbeat)

There are so many things going on, here.

In a radio interview last week, Bachmann, the former Minnesota Republican congresswoman, told “End Times” host Jan Markell, “We need to realize how close this clock is getting to the midnight hour.”

“We in our lifetimes potentially could see Jesus Christ returning to earth and the rapture of the church,” Bachmann said. “We see the destruction, but this was a destruction that was foretold.”

Bachmann cited the Obama administration’s nuclear negotiations with Iran as a cause. The U.S. and five partner nations are discussing a deal with Iran that would prevent the country from developing or obtaining nuclear weapons.

“We are literally watching, month by month, the speed move up to a level we’ve never seen before with these events,” Bachmann said. “Barack Obama is intent. It is his number one goal to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

(Fang)

Hatred, in Jesus’ Name

A question for Pastor Edward James: Just how much do you think about marrying a horse?

Emily Le Coz tries to explain for Reuters:

A Mississippi pastor brought a horse in a wedding dress to stand with him outside a federal courthouse on Friday in Jackson to protest a federal judge’s ruling, currently on hold, to overturn the socially conservative state’s ban on gay marriage.

The horse, complete with white flowers tucked into its harness and a bouquet at its feet, munched grass as the pastor, Edward James of Bertha Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, spoke and waved signs at passersby.

“Do you take this horse to be your unnatural wedded spouse to have and to hold?” one sign read.

Pastor James is protesting a ruling from U.S. District Court invalidating Mississippi’s heterosupremacist marriage law. Pretending to comprehend that his demonstration was somewhat silly, he justified himself with the usual excuse: “Although it’s ridiculous,” he told a local newspaper, “so is the same-sex marriage status”.

In the first place, reconciling his lack of faith in God is something Pastor James should probably carry out in private communion with God. Showing it off is not, by conventional understandings of Biblical guidance, among the most productive of paths. To put it lightly. You know, because he’s a Christian pastor, and therefore requires kid gloves; even when he’s punching with vice, he expects everyone else to turn the other cheek.

An Extraneous Blame Game

Briefly: Sure, if your mother is still accessible to you in this world, give her a hug.

The rest of this is just … I don’t know, silly.

Quite literally on the day Keith Knight’s cartoon, detailed above, posted at Daily Kos Comics, a note popped up from a friend that her mother had fallen and broken her arm. You know, a request for prayers and best wishes.

Naturally, I sent my friend a link to the cartoon.

It was … what, two days later? Another friend informed us that her mother had fallen and broken her wrist. Prayers and best wishes dutifully filed in, and I won’t nitpick the point that it seems a dubious proposition to pray that God will undo His will and magically heal the damage. We can set prayer aside, and just send cartoons on such occasions.

A bit before midnight last night that same friend checked in: “So, guess what…Mom fell again today. This time she broke her right wrist.”

Sigh. I don’t have a cartoon link for this one.

Best wishes, of course. But come on, either God or Keith Knight—who do I get to blame for this absurdity?

How about Isaac Newton?

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Knight, Keith. “Visiting Germany”. Daily Kos. 11 November 2014.

The Little Children … Suffering

Right ....

ChurchSnaps allows users to “create private albums away from social media” where invite-only users “can add their own photos and make comments.” Hm. I can’t think of a single good reason why youth pastors might need a private network for sharing photos. But investigators might want to start checking rapey youth pastors’ phones to see if they’ve downloaded ChurchSnaps, what kind of pictures they’ve been sharing, with whom they were sharing them.

(Savage)

Yeah. The Youth Pastor Watch is one of those things that can get a little scary if you let it. Still, though, parents should be aware of this evil spectre haunting their children.

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Savage, Dan. “Youth Pastor Watch: ChurchSnaps—What Could Go Wrong?” Slog. 17 November 2014.

A Quote: Good Ol’ Fashioned, Honest-to-God, Real Holy Sh*t

Talk about a gem. That’s a real quote. Then again, of course it is. This is the Pat Robertson we’re talking about. Brian Tashman has the brief on Robertson and the faithless, as well as the mildly uncomfortable video. And Steve Benen has the weekly roundup of the goings-on at the intersection of God and State.

Now, if someone could only point us the way to the intersection of Pat Robertson and Reality. Or maybe not; there are some things and places in this world we just don’t need to see.

“There are some people, you know, they enjoy their sickness. That is terrible to say but that is their excuse not to compete, ‘well I’d love to compete but my lumbago’s got me so I can’t do it.'”

Of course, he’s Pat Robertson, so, yeah. He knows. Right? Right?