hoo boy
So, Isis put that Jordanian pilot in a cage, poured gas on him and burned him alive with a good quality camera rolling?
Link goes to Breitbart London. There’s one still image showing a man standing in a cage with fire to his knees; nothing too traumatizing if you don’t think about it too much. I would recommend not following their outlinks to the actual video. Not that I’ve done it, but there are some images I’ve put it my head that I would really rather I hadn’t. Stupid internet.
These are people who attract new recruits with beheading videos. They’re looking for people who think “say, that’s for me!” when they watch a film of someone’s head being sawn off slowly.
Yeah, it’s not one clean whack with a sword. That’s one of those pictures I wish I hadn’t put in my head.
So, let’s face it: we’re looking at a bunch of guys who would be freelance serial killers if this whole ISIS thing hadn’t come along for them. Not that I’m letting Islam off the hook — it’s clearly a religion that lends itself to militancy — but it’s pretty obvious they are working to gather an army of perverts and sick fucks.
It seems pretty unlikely we’re going to go in and kill them all. But can we at least keep them bottled up over there until they start killing each other?
February 3, 2015 — 9:22 pm
Comments: 13
Okay, who woke up the Vikings?
Iceland is going to build its first temple to the Norse gods in a thousand years. Their high priest admits he doesn’t think his congregation believes in a one-eyed god on an eight-legged horse, it’s more about celebrating life’s rituals in a way that acknowledges their history. Weddings, comings of age. That sort of thing.
I can see this idea catching on. It’s more or less how I approach the church myself.
Oh, and I found this: some Aussie did analysis a few years ago on Viking bones dug up in the North of England and found half of them were women. Sadly, they probably weren’t warrior princesses. Though one woman was buried with weapons, most were not and it stands to reason they came in as settlers.
The most badass illegal immigrants EVAH.
Completely unrelated: Google Earth Pro is now free. Used to be a few hundred bucks a year. Pro gives you things like four times the print resolution and tools for measuring area. I just tried to sign up for a license, though, and got ‘technical error’ so they’re probably being hammered. I’m’a stick with it until I get it — I *love* Google Earth.
Happy Monday, y’all!
February 2, 2015 — 10:31 pm
Comments: 8
Zombie Mo
I think this is my only drawing of Mo, ever. I did it for Everybody Draw Mohammed Day in 2010. Making fun of religious people isn’t really my favorite thing (except Druids; that shit makes me break out in sarcasm). But, you know, got to do my bit.
I’d feel a lot better about those solidarity marches if they hadn’t held up “Je Suis Charlie” but had held up pictures of Mohammed instead. That is the only way you would truly be Charlie Hebdo.
January 8, 2015 — 10:11 pm
Comments: 7
This is my favorite of the cartoon reactions. The artist is Joep Bertrams. Onsterfelijk means immortal.
I like the sentiment. Sadly, I don’t believe it. In every instance I can think of, terrorism worked. Works. Works exactly as intended.
If they keep Charlie Hebdo going, and it keeps publishing enthusiastic blasphemy, I’ll be impressed and encouraged. But the point stands. Hesitant people will hesitate even more, and there will be more hesitant people.
The Financial Times has *already* run a “now, I’m not condoning terrorism, but…” article (link goes to HotAir because FT is behind a firewall). Western media are blurring out the offending images in reports about the incident. (Here’s the Telegraph. Here’s the New York Daily News (scroll down).
The AP’s sniffy, sanctimonious press release describing how they avoid all controversial images hilariously exploded in their faces when the Washington Examiner discovered them selling prints of Piss Christ on their web site. You remember — Andres Serrano’s photo of a crucifix submerged in a jar of old pee. (Btw, hate to admit it, always sneakingly thought that was a really haunting and beautiful image. Shame about the pee).
Point is, it’s probably going to work. This is probably not the tipping point. That depresses me as much as the murders.
January 7, 2015 — 10:41 pm
Comments: 6
Big questions
One last one from the flower festival: the washing up. They just picked a convenient tomb near the door and set up the wash basin. So, there you go.
In our own church celebrations, I’ve been shocked to see wine cooling in the baptismal font and people playing at boules among the graves.
I wish I could convey to you the English attitude to church, at least down here. Remember, I come from a place where church is intense and Jesus-y. The closest church to the family farm was Foot-Washing Baptist (we weren’t members, though). It’s just a whole ‘nother thing.
Church is obviously important to many here, and they put a lot of effort into keeping things going. It is very much about maintaining these beautiful and terribly expensive old buildings. This particular church pre-dates the Norman Conquest — it’s Saxon, for cri-yi.
But it would be a mistake to say the attitude is entirely material and not at all spiritual. There is a sense of the fitness of the ancient rituals, of observing the appropriate rites of birth, marriage and death and the seasonal observances. But, really, I do think many of these churchgoers believe in God and think their prayers go someplace.
It’s all very puzzling.
Now, the big question — the fact they’re nearly all Of A Certain Age, does it mean their kind will die out with this generation, or will the next generation of oldsters step in and take their place? In perpetuity?
August 21, 2014 — 9:51 pm
Comments: 16
Everything’s better with googly eyes
So this village church — the one with the cool tomb — was having its flower festival. That’s why we were there. I’ve posted about flower festivals before — I just love these things. They are so unspeakably weird.
What happens is, the congregation agrees on a theme, and people do flower arrangements based on the theme. Then they place them around the church — including supposedly sacred spaces. Going in, you’re given a program that describes the tableaux by the numbers. Then, at the end, there’s cake and tea.
If that doesn’t sound too weird to you, read on.
The theme of this show was Ladybird Books. Ladybird is a children’s book publisher going back to the Nineteenth C, much like our Little Golden Books. As we rounded the corner, the very first display was a giant decapitated Barbie head on a plinth. You know, like those big doll heads for girls to play with hairstyles. Only, this one didn’t have a neck, and instead of hair, it had long, long tendrils of raw wool hanging down over the drapery. And flowers.
I’m thinking, holy shit it’s the ISIS flower arrangement. I consult my program: Rapunzel. Huh.
There was the Pied Piper, which was a leather hat, flowers and many rubber rats. These googly-eyed vegetables (I have no idea). One old boy had done a large display of plastic dinosaurs and convincingly Jurassic-looking plants. Seriously, there were like thirty of these things all over the church.
Somebody played the organ and we all had tea and cake in the pews.
It’s not all women, but it is all old people. I’ve decided I like old people. Which is just as well, really.
August 20, 2014 — 10:39 pm
Comments: 6
Maybe own a bit of history, kind of
That up there is the Wesley Tree in beautiful Winchelsea, the ash tree under which John Wesley preached his last ever outdoor sermon, 223 years ago today (spooky — I didn’t realize it when I started writing this post, but the date was October 7, 1790).
Actually, it’s not really. Tourists (or the devout, if you prefer) picked bits off of the original tree until a strong wind came along in 1927 and blew down what was left. This substantial tree was grown from a sapling taken from a cutting. So it’s kind of the historic tree.
Anyway, sadly, we’re having a serious ash die back over here, caused by a fungus, Chalara fraxinea. It turned up in Poland in 1992, ripped across Europe (Denmark lost 60-90% of their ash trees) and arrived in the UK in 2012, in a shipment of young trees from the Netherlands. There’s a lot of ash here, so this isn’t good.
So when the Wesley Tree looked unwell, everyone feared the worst. Well, it turns out the bugger has an altogether different fungus, the Hairy Bracket fungus. Which may or may not go along with an even eviller fungus, White Rot.
Damn, this tree hugging is complicated.
So what they’re doing up there is lopping off the affected limbs and hoping for the best. They’re also appealing for locals to take cuttings and seeds and grow backup trees, in the event of a bad outcome.
I was going to say, if any of my readers are Methodist arborculturists, you should totally ask for a cutting. And then I realized that might import ash dieback to the US.
So, bad idea. Forget I said anything.
October 7, 2013 — 10:55 pm
Comments: 26
Ugh. This day.
I don’t post an essay on September 11 any more. I’m as heartsick and angry as I was on this day twelve years ago, but I’ve already said everything I have to say about it.
This is just a bad topic for my silly blog, but I can’t ignore it, either. So, a non-post post.
Talk about whatever you like in the comments. If you want cheering up, poke this.
September 11, 2013 — 7:33 pm
Comments: 12
And this fabulous can of soup
We went to a church flower festival this weekend, one of England’s zanier natural disasters. How it works is, they pick a theme for the festival, and a dozen or so people make flower arrangements and little tableaux on the subject and scatter them around the church. There’s usually a helpful program.
That doesn’t sound weird? Well, this is how it usually ends up: say the theme is “summer activities”, you’re going to find a vase of zinnias and a grubby sneaker in the pulpit. And a bowl of badminton shuttlecocks with petunia in the baptismal font. (Hello? Salvador Dali called: he’s a lit-tle creeped out and he’d like a ride home now, please).
There’s usually refreshments and some stalls and other fundraising things outside, in aid of the church building. Bits of this church are 900 years old. It has clearly been extensively renovated many times over the centuries. There’s a sign on the tipjar by the door that says it costs £100 a day to keep the building together.
And that’s the thing. This is a little community to pony up a hundred smackers a day. And, without breaking a sweat, I can think of a dozen villages around me with small populations and beautiful ancient churches to keep afloat.
The big ‘C’ Church helps with the costs, of course, and there are various architectural grants and things. But these great old buildings are mostly kept alive by locals. I don’t know if it’s a Christian thing, this bedrock devotion to the church building. I suspect not. It’s very powerful, though.
Oh, I won that can of soup in the raffle. Only cost me a pound in tickets. I like to imagine some nice old English lady shrieking, “oh my lord — the flower festival is today! Quick, go into the kitchen and grab something. Anything!”
June 25, 2013 — 10:54 pm
Comments: 22
Nope, sorry
I grew up about two miles from a Footwashing Baptist church. It was where you turned left onto the dirt road that led to home, and by the time we got to that spot (if we were coming from Nashville) my mother and I had been on the road quite a while and were almost always shivering for a pee. I mention this because the church had an awesome brick shithouse to one side. It was nearly as big as the church. With what terrible longing we stared at that great cathedral of a pissoire when we passed.
It was locked, though. We tip-toed up and checked it out once. It had a glass window. And it was an eight-seater. Four holes on one side, four on the other. Visualize that at full capacity, folks.
Where I am now is largely Church of England. High church is basically Catholicism minus the pope. Bells and smells and ancient stone buildings. It is very old and beautiful. It is decorous and English. It seems a whole universe away from an eight-seater brick shithouse up a dirt track.
But it’s not. However much distance there would seem to be between snake handlers and Opus Dei, it is all Christian. They recognize the same sacred verses and celebrate the same holidays. They worship the same light, however much the light is bent through the prism of a hundred denominations. They are deeply related.
I understand how a prosperous middle class Muslim in some leafy London suburb would watch yesterday’s news and say that has nothing to do with me. But it does. Or, rather, it doesn’t, but it is a product of the same faith. A different interpretation of the same words.
Which isn’t to say: feel guilty. More like: choose.
May 23, 2013 — 10:41 pm
Comments: 39