Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan 3
For your Halloween Hauntings and good ghost stories, I have found this link just for you.
Jo-Anne Christensen has also put together and wrote Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan and More Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan. This is the third volume and I believe she is working on a fourth one.
There is also an ebook version that can be read through Google. Click here!
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- Hollywood Ghost Stories For A Haunted Halloween (huffingtonpost.com)
- Galley Gossip: Flight attendant haunted layover hotel ghost stories (and a haunted plane!) (gadling.com)
- A True Ghost Story Part B: The Ghost In the Hall [Greg Laden's Blog] (scienceblogs.com)
- Collected Ghost Stories by M R James: review (telegraph.co.uk)
- MR James’s ghost stories: celebrate Halloween the old-fashioned way (guardian.co.uk)
Learn something new everyday
As many of you know, I work at a weekly newspaper for a small town. The area isn’t that large and we don’t have a lot of staff, so we rely on our readership to get some news to us. We also have community news, which is happenings in and around the different communities in the area of Lake Diefenbaker. Some of those correspondents will add a quote at the end of each news write up for the week. I’ve shared several here.
This one caught my eye, not only for the quote itself, but also by who it is quoting.
“The Friend of God has these three qualities; a generosity like that of the ocean, a compassion like that of the sun, and a humility like that of the earth.” ~Bayazid, Tadhkirat
A little research and I found this at wikipedia.
Tazkirat al-Awliyā
Tazkirat al-Awliyā (Persian: تذکرة الاولیا, literally “Biographies of the Saints”), also transliterated as Tadhkirat al-Awliya or Tazkerat-ol-Owliya, is a 72-chapter book written by the Persian poet and mystic Attar about the life of famous Sufis and their miraculous deeds (Karamats). This is the only surviving work of Attar written as prose. It starts with a biography of Imam Jafar Sadiq , the Sixth Imam of Shia and ends with one of Mansur Al-Hallaj’s , the Sufi Martyr.
Also, as linked in the biographies further down the page:
Bayazid Bastami
Bayazid Bastami (Persian بايزيد بسطامى ), also known as Abu Yazid Bistami or Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bustami, (804-874 or 877/8[1] CE) was a Persian[2] Sufi born in Bastam, Iran.
Essentially, the use of this quote and the fact it originated from Islamic origins says something about people in this area. For the most part, people in the Lake Diefenbaker region are not quick to get caught up in the furor of hyped inaccuracy. And they are open minded and tolerant enough to see things as they should be seen. Something beautiful and worth learning. We’ve still got a way to go in this area of Saskatchewan, if not the entire province, but I think we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where we could be.
This is Halloween!
It may not be a holiday like Christmas or Easter, but it’s still a fun time of year. We all seem to get a big thrill out of being scared witless. For this Halloween, a collection of frightfully wonderful things, a potpourri of terror!
ZOMBIES DON’T RUN!
I know it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist, but this genuinely irks me. You cannot kill a vampire with an MDF stake; werewolves can’t fly; zombies do not run. It’s a misconception, a bastardisation that diminishes a classic movie monster. The best phantasmagoria uses reality to render the inconceivable conceivable. The speedy zombie seems implausible to me, even within the fantastic realm it inhabits. A biological agent, I’ll buy. Some sort of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. It’s hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.
More significantly, the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.
However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you’re careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them – much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares – the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles.
Have you had a good amount of scary tales to read? There’s a large number of books to pick up from local libraries or even the bookstore.
Even scary movies (not the titular Scary Movie, though). Some of my own favourites include Sleepy Hallow, House on Haunted Hill, and A Nightmare Before Christmas.
So for this Halloween, have a scary good time, and enjoy the warm weather that we have for this time of year.
World’s Largest Pumpkin Now World’s Coolest Zombie Sculpture
Adventures in pants!
Totally not my jeans. Image via Wikipedia
Today I came to the realization that I had to retire one of my favourite pairs of weekend jeans. They had holes in them, but they were comfortable and just something I could wear around the house. I didn’t wear them all summer, because that’s when I wear my shorts around the house on weekends. But today was a little cooler, so it’s time to retire the shorts for this year. Out come the weekend jeans.
Which took me five minutes to shimmy into, and then ten minutes to peel out of.
Niether are these, but they look comfy. Image via Wikipedia
Maybe it’s that aspect of age where certain parts of the human body begin moving south, but I remember my waist being not that big, nor my legs. And I’m not that big to begin with. But today I find out that my trusty weekend jeans are suddenly now a quick trip to torture land. My calves being squeezed so badly that I can’t feel my feet at all, and let’s not forget about the really sensitive area without actually discussing it. Let’s just say that going to the bathroom without making a mess would have been an adventure in itself.
I am suddenly struck with the realization I will have to throw out a pair of jeans (I could give them to goodwill, but even they wouldn’t take them with the condition they are in) and buy new ones. The work jeans I have are slowly becoming weekend jeans, which is okay, I don’t mind that. I’ll have new jeans to look forward to wearing on weekends. Maybe I’ll get a pair of bib coveralls, but that would only mean going to the bathroom would be an equally sad adventure.
Oh well. Looks like I’ll have to make the sacrifice and buy new jeans. At least then I might find some where I can use a belt with.
Native American culture shouldn’t be appropriated for fashion
I have my own tumblr and often I’ll see pictures crop up on my dash of some skinny white model wearing a Native American warbonnet as some hipster fashion statement. They aren’t. The warbonnets actually mean something, and a little research shows exactly what they were used for, and surprisingly, that there weren’t that many tribes that used the commonly seen warbonnet (that many hipsters decide to wear).
Image via Wikipedia
This first part of this post is a rant. My specific bitch is about white hipsters using traditional (or what appears to be traditionaal) Lakota Sioux warbonnets as fashion statements, and some even bemoaning that they aren’t Native American. Or worse, when called out on their appropriation, claim they have (most often) Cherokee ancestry. Which is bullshit, because there are more than one hundred tribes in North America, including Plains Indians, Pacific Coast Indians, Atlantic Coast Indians, Mexican Indians, and Gulf Indians. Many of those tribes were wiped out of existence thanks to the push to settle the west by both American colonists and British colonists in British North America, or what is now known as Canada. Large numbers of Dakota First Nation People were killed in this push. Look up Wounded Knee sometime. Many Dakota moved north, eventually settling in British North America, such as the Whitecap Dakota First Nation.
Now the second part of this post. Time to educate some people about the Native American headdresses that they so seeming like to use as fashion statements. As well as those that might want to “dress up” as a Native American for Halloween. The thing that a lot of people don’t understand, these symbols, such as the warbonnet, are very sacred to many tribes.
You can find complete information here, but I’ll describe a good deal in this post.
This image is the most commonly known headdress, which is actually a Lakota Sioux war bonnet. In truth, most First Nation tribes never used headdresses like this. While these may be the best known headdresses, they are not the most commonly used and they weren’t the only style of headdress. Headdresses varied depending on the tribe or location.
These warbonnets were the most commonly seen headdresses in westerns both on television and the silver screen. However, these bonnets were only used by a dozen or so tribes in the Great Plains, such as the Sioux, Crow, Blackfeet, Cheyenne and Plains Cree.
Dakota Trailer warbonnet
halo warbonnet
straight up warbonnet
Caddo Warrior’s roach
These warbonnets were ceremonial regalia worn by chiefs and warriors, much like the regalia worn by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip is considered traditional for the British Monarchy. Also important, only men wore these warbonnets, though it is reported that some women in Plains tribes did go to war, and there were even some female chiefs, but they never wore these bonnets. Sometimes men would wear these warbonnets into battle, but most often they wore what is called a roach bonnet.
powwow dancer’s roach
Roach bonnets were worn by warriors and dancers and like warbonnets, the porcupine hair roach is traditionally men’s headwear, not worn even by female warriors. These roach bonnets also varied from tribe to tribe, and in many tribes roaches were worn into battle, while more formal tribal headdresses like warbonnets, otter-fur turbans or gustowah caps, were worn to ceremonial events. Other tribes wore roach bonnets primarily as dance regalia or sports costume. While some men in different tribes would wear a roach bonnet, others might not and they were not seen as spirituality meaningful as warbonnets, though a boy earning the right to wear a roach for the first time was an important ceremony in some tribes.
The page includes many other headdresses, including buffalo bonnets, otter-fur turbans, Seminole cloth turbans and Iroquois gustoweh caps, and includes tribal headdresses for women.
At the FAQ at the bottom of the page it mentions places to buy headdresses and where to go to make your own, but there was something important there as well.
If you are not Native American but are just trying to make a headdress for an art project, we recommend making a beaded headband, since headbands do not have the same sacred meaning of many other Indian headdresses and do not require you to understand complex cultural traditions to create one properly. The book North American Indian Beadwork Patterns includes a nice pattern for beading a Native American headband.
Related articles
- Tribalism as Pop Culture Phenomenon and the Perpetuation of Offensive American Indian Stereotypes (indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com)
Take me out to the ball game!
Members of Team Canada celebrate as a run is scored in Canada's gold medal winning victory over the United States at the Pan Am Games in Mexico on Wednesday.
When one thinks of baseball heroics, they often look to names like Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson or Hank Aaron. Even the stories, whether true or fictitious, are from far off places. The closest baseball stories come to Saskatchewan would be the Toronto Blue Jays of the early 1990’s, winning back to back World Series titles and taking the trophy north of the border for the first time in it’s history.
Sure, there is Terry Puhl, an outfielder who played with the Houston Astros, was born and raised in Melville, Saskatchewan. But most often when Saskatchewan is thought of, it’s usually how flat the country is. How cold it is in winter. How many hockey players we have and don’t have an NHL team. We also happen to rabid football fans, as our only professional team in any sports happens to be a member of the Canadian Football League. But baseball usually isn’t thought of by people outside of Saskatchewan when they think about this province.
That should put Andrew Albers in pretty decent company, then. Albers was on the mound for the gold medal game as Canada took on the United States at the Pan Am Games in Mexico. The North Battleford native pitched six and two third innings, striking out eight, and letting only six hits, as he helped lead Team Canada to it’s first ever gold medal at any baseball event.
It makes sense, really, that people from Saskatchewan should have a passion for baseball. Look at every small town in this province. You’ll find four things. A hockey arena, curling rink, a golf course not far away. And baseball diamonds. Most often, those diamonds aren’t far from the hockey arena. Every July 1st, in the area I live and work now, there’s the small village of Conquest that has a slow pitch tournament. Conquest also still has a baseball team for junior high and high school aged kids. Even though the village no longer has a school.
There are kids that dream of playing on those perfect grass fields that grow up in Saskatchewan. We aren’t known for baseball, but Team Canada’s 2-1 victory over the United States for Pan Am Games gold, just made that dream a little more achievable.
Related articles
- Pan Am gold caps comeback season for Canadian pitcher (canada.com)
- Canadians realize dream with Pan Am baseball gold (cbc.ca)
- Canada’s baseball win over U.S. at Pan Ams doesn’t surprise Ernie Whitt (thestar.com)
- Canada upends USA for first Pan Am gold (mlb.mlb.com)
- Canada stuns U.S. to claim baseball gold (canada.com)
- Canada wins Pan Am baseball gold (thestar.com)
- Canada beats US to win gold at Pan American Games (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Canada enjoys unlikely glory (canada.com)
Stop U.S. arms sales to Bahrain!
The U.S. State Department is coming under fire for considering a $53 million arms sale.
Why? Because since February of this year, the military, security and police forces of the prospective buyer –Bahrain – have used such weapons and military equipment to inflict deaths and injuries on protestors demanding greater political freedom.
Moving forward with this arms sale would provide more weapons and equipment to the very Bahraini security forces who have already shot protestors. It would also cross a clear line of U.S. responsibility to protect human rights.
That’s why right now members of Congress, led by Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Jim McGovern, are drawing a sharp line with a resolution aimed at blocking this arms sale.
Urge your Senators and Representatives to join the call to stop the U.S. arms sale to Bahrain!
Bahrain’s horrible record on human rights continues to this day. At the peak of the crackdown, President Obama condemned the “mass arrests and brute force” used by the Bahraini government.
So why is the State Department even considering selling Bahrain more weapons?
Fortunately, the U.S. State Department is showing some signs of responsiveness. Just last week, it agreed to delay the weapons sale until a commission in Bahrain finishes investigating the government’s human rights abuses.
This temporary delay gives us the space we need to break through with a larger message of protecting human rights in Bahrain.
Add your voice — help stop the U.S. arms sale to Bahrain!
In Solidarity,
Sanjeev Bery
Advocacy Director, Middle East & North Africa
Amnesty International USA
The Way I See It: Political Landscape of Saskatchewan
Last night was the leaders debate for the upcoming Saskatchewan provincial election. It was quite lackluster. So much so, that I found myself longing for the old days with the political landscape in this province.
At present, we have two large political factions. On the right, there is the Sask Party, made up of old members of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. Center Left is the New Democratic Party. Then, there are several smaller factions, which include The Saskatchewan Liberal Party, who I understand this election are focusing all of their efforts in winning just one seat in the Battlefords. The other smaller party of note is the Saskatchewan Green Party, which is currently on the same road as the old CCF was at one time. They’re hoping to gain five seats in this election, but we’ll have to see. Current predictions show that there most likely won’t be any change in the status quo.
But last night, I got thinking how the political landscape in this province would be markedly different had one event not happened. More than twenty years ago, things started that made this province very interesting. Linda Haverstock was elected as leader of the provincial Liberal party, Roy Romanow had taken over as leader of the NDP, and the PC Party looked to be on it’s last legs.
The provincial election of 1991 set the stage for what was to come over the next ten years. Many of the members of the Grant Devine Government of the 1980′s were indicted on charges of fraud and embezzlement. Romanow became what was jokingly known as the best Liberal premier Saskatchewan had in a long time. And Haverstock and her Liberals were gaining major steam, mostly due to the charismatic and intelligent nature of Haverstock herself.
Then something happened. The Saskatchewan Liberal Party called for a vote of confidence in Haverstock. In a slim vote, Haverstock took the confidence 51% to 49, but she still stepped down as leader. To make matters worse, the party stripped her of her membership. All of this is still mind boggling, considering the fact that many in the province saw Haverstock as a natural leader. There were predictions that she was on track to become the next premier of the province, and the first woman to do so.
After she was stripped of her membership, a few Liberal MLAs and the remaining PC MLAs joined forces to form the Sask Party. Just think, if that had never happened, if Haverstock never had a vote of confidence forced on her, what would have happened. There’s all kinds of speculation, and it’s my own right to speculate all I want, so here goes.
Haverstock and her Liberals would have won the provincial election of the late 1990s in Saskatchewan, which would have ushered in the first Liberal government since the 1960s, and the first woman to sit as premier of Saskatchewan. Haverstock would have been compared to Romanow quite a bit, because while she acted as a continuous measure of conscious for the ruling NDP while she was opposition leader, she also had some of the same values. She knew of the importance of the province’s crown corporations, knew of the importance of the unions, but was also not willing to give in to what might be considered frivolous demands. Had Haverstock not been stripped of membership, the Sask Party never would have existed, and instead the PC Party would be struggling to rebuild with the Liberal Party holding three straight governments. That’s right, Haverstock would have lead the Saskatchewan Liberal Party to three straight provincial governments, with the last two being slim majorities. Romanow still would have retired, Calvert still would have become leader of the NDP, but I think it would have been doubtful if Dwain Lingenfelter would have taken another swing at politics like he has currently.
One event. Just one, small event, would have completely changed things in this province. Instead, we are now forced to sit through two leaders who have done an amazing job of name calling, and kept a 2011 election campaign completely under the radar with lackluster promises and less than stellar rhetoric.
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Guess what came in the post today? – YouTube
Guess what came in the post today? – YouTube.
As it says in the comment:
More books came in the post. Actually, they came by courier, and I found them on the front passenger seat of my car. One of the bonuses of having a vehicle that everyone in this small town recognizes is that the local courier can just drop off packages while I’m getting my morning coffee and muffins at the local Esso station.
I find this is an excellent reminder of the hard work that went into this book, and that many people have read and enjoyed it, which makes all of that hard work worth it.
Autumn quotes and Irish proverbs
The one rowing the boat is never the one who rocks it. ~author unknown
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book. ~Irish proverb
Autumn is the year’s last loveliest smile. What a wonderful way to describe the richness of autumn, don’t you think? ~author unknown
I’ve finally reached the age where my Wild Oats have turned into All-Bran ~Tom Wilson, Ziggy, Nov. 19, 1999
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if you can dan which historical time period would you like be in nd why???
Most likely for me, the time period I would like to be in is the Wild West, around the 1860s to 1890s. And why? That’s a big part of the history that helped shape the county that I live in. While in Canada it wasn’t all gun fights and outlaws, there was a large number of historical people and events I would love to meet.
What’s your favorite late-night snack?
Chips. Actually, trail mix. But I’m not a fan of pretzels. If not that, then peanut butter on toast. Quick, easy and satisfying. For a beverage, most often tea with a dollop of honey. Most often Red Rose tea.
Next year’s NaNoWriMo
This is how early I start working on an idea for next year’s NaNoWriMo. Using the costume editor in Champions Online, I came up with a group picture and individual pictures of an idea that has been just sitting there for a while. The characters have had different incarnations over the years, the newest being CanadARM-D.
The assembled team.
Here’s the premise: As more and more pressures are put on the world, a billionaire industrialist decides it’s time to form a team that can handle certain situations. Donelda Stewart, who used to be a costumed vigilante during the 1970’s and 1980’s, brings together several people, while at the same time fulfilling a contract to the Canadian Government to develop a robot that would be able to enter hostile situations with the primary goal of rescuing those injured and in need of medical attention. Thus, CanadARM-D (last picture) was created. Canada Armoured Reconnaissance-Rescue ‘Droid is the full name of the development and the name taken by the prototype, who acts as a member of the team Stewart brought together.
The android CanadARM-D
Stewart knew that most situations that would require immediate attention involving injured civilians would need to have a doctor on site. She contacted Doctor Facra Englen (second from the right), a trauma surgeon and an expert in DNA sequencing. Englen was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba to Palestinian immigrants. She was born with a rare genetic mutation, which is what spurred her interest in genetic science. She wanted to learn why these genetic mutations happen, and learn why they happened to her. Fadra Englen was gifted with an odd mutation. While possessing all of the human abilities every single person on the planet has, she also has traits of panthera tigris; The Common Tiger. Her skin has markings of a tiger, ranging from orange to black to white, her fingernails grow like claws, her sight and hearing is improved well past normal human abilities, her musculature is far greater than most Olympic level athletes, and she is much more agile than a very athletic human. Fadra is a practicing Muslim, taking the tenants of the Qur’an very seriously with regard to the sanctity of life. She receives no payment from Stewart, on her own request, as she believes that this team must act as role models for others to live by.
Doctor Fadra Englen
The third and fourth team members are actually members of something else. Dominique Turgeon, or Canadienne (third from the right), is the lead guitarist of the Montreal indie rock band, Blanc Noir. Together with Yves and Jacqueline Manderville, Michelle Villenueve, and Raven Running Cloud (fourth from the right), they are one of the most popular rock bands on the indie circuit. Dom has even gone public with her dual identity, which she inherited from her father. Jean Pierre Turgeon fought against FLQ Terrorists during the October Crisis of 1970, dressed in a similar red and white uniform of Canadien. Dom has something a little extra, however, aside from her training with Tae Kwon Do. She has a mutant ability to achieve the speed of sound. Dom has been clocked running at speeds of 1237 kilometers per, which is faster than the top speed of Canada’s CF18 fighter jets. Dom has been crime fighting, and rockin’ out as a guitarist, since she was in her mid teens. Dom was born in Laval, Quebec, and is Metis, as part of her ancestry is European French and Mohawk First Nation.
Dominique Turgeon, a.k.a. Canadienne.
The other member of Blanc Noir to be a crime fighter is Raven Running Cloud. Raven, like Dom, comes by her crime fighting from family members. Her father, Maxwell Running Cloud, was known as Hawk’s Scream, a moniker he took up when his wife was murdered and Raven kidnapped. Raven, as it turned out, was taken to a secret facility and had several experiments conducted on her. She was 8 at the time, and spent two years in the facility before Max, along with Dr. Englen, his sister Naomi Running Cloud (who was the first Grey Kestrel), and the Mannekin (the son of Donelda Stewart), could rescue her. The experiments had two very serious effects. First, Raven was completely blind, only able to see certain light spectrums which would allow her to “see” a person’s aura. The other was an increased strength and physical mass. She appears to weigh about 150 pounds, but in reality she weighs upwards of 500 or 600 pounds. She took up her Aunt Naomi’s namesake, and began fighting crime as a sidekick of Dom’s, as her father had retired a few years earlier. Raven was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and is a member of the Whitecap Dakota First Nation.
Raven Running Cloud, a.k.a. Grey Kestrel
So this is what I’ll try and work on for next year’s NaNoWriMo.
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Tim’s Views: Paranormal Activity
SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT
Not sure what to think about it.
I know the first part was build up/explaining some background events.
But it had a very Blair Witch feel to it, in that people seemed to still maintain the calm to grab the camera, while being scared for their lives. It had the same elements as Blair Witch as well, one’s I could see coming. I knew about half way through the movie that the couple was going to die. Granted, the boyfriend died off camera. His girlfriend, under possession I assume, knifed him, then sat in the bedroom for hours and just rocked back and forth. The boyfriend had to have been killed in the livingroom, because at one point someone comes over, enters and starts screaming. All this while the girlfriend is still rocking catatonic in the bedroom. She finally moves when the police show up, who shoot her because she is holding a knife.
This all began because the couple, in their home, have been having experiences with some ghost or poltergeist. As the movie progresses, the activities become worse and worse, from noises, to growls, to doors opening and closing, possession, and even the girlfriend being dragged from bed and down the hall at one point.
The premise was interesting, but it wasn’t really that great a movie. It had been done before, after all, with Blair Witch. And I saw that movie before all of the hype. So this movie doesn’t present anything new, really. Even the use of video recorders isn’t new. You want something that’s equally scary and informative along the same lines, then watch Ghost Adventures (besides, Nick, Zakk and Aaron are awesome).
This movie was set up like a reality show, but had it’s scary moments. Personally, I liked the late night scenes when the couple went to bed and then the fun started. By that I mean the late night haunting. There was the well done evidence of the powder on the floor which displayed footprints, the Ouija board with the puck moving on it’s own, the slamming door, the loud footsteps, Katie (the girlfriend) suddenly standing up in the middle of the night, or being dragged off. And at one point there was a shadowy figure that could be seen crossing the room.
These were elements that had been reported in actual hauntings or poltergeists from real life. They were all used quite well. I’m not sure, however, if the movie warranted two sequels. But, Paramount did get the story idea for all three movies for $300,000 dollars. Compared to most movies, that’s a steal.
Related articles
- ‘Paranormal Activity 3′: The Reviews Are In! (mtv.com)
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- Film: Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 3 (avclub.com)
- ‘Paranormal Activity 3′: What’s Your Favorite Found Footage Film? (moviesblog.mtv.com)
- Paranormal Activity 3: Movie Review (screencrave.com)
- Good Movies with “Paranormal” Themes (izabael.com)
- Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 3 (blogcritics.org)
- New at Reason: Kurt Loder on Paranormal Activity 3 (reason.com)
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Hey! Isn’t today supposed to be the Rapture?
Look at that, I get to use one of these again.
This completely went by without a thought.
I remember all the hoopla about May 21 earlier this year. It was supposed to be the Rapture, the time when the chosen would be carried into heaven and the rest of us poor sods would dwell in some sort of nasty stuff. Which, personally, puts a complete downer for me for the plans I have for this weekend and for November’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month for the uninitiated).
Have we gotten tired of these end of the world prognostications? I know I have. These individuals who say that they will pour over the Bible and try to predict when the end times are upon us seem to forget one thing. The Bible also states that the end will come like a thief in the night and that anyone who tries to predict it is a liar.
Think about that for a second, all those who go about predicting the complete destruction of the world. The Bible, the holy tome which all Christians (re: the right wing group) holds more sacred than any other (yet, doesn’t really seem to follow all of the suggested tenants) just called them all a bunch of liars. Maybe there hasn’t been as much hoopla about this date is because the prediction for earlier this year, made by Family Radio founder Harold Camping, got sort of drowned out by the fact it never happened at all. There was the usual back pedaling, which included stating that the Rapture did indeed happen, but it was spiritual and invisible, and that the actual physical Rapture would take place on October 21. Five months later.
You know, when I make a prediction, and to be honest I never do, I can back pedal with bullshit pretty good too. When push comes to shove, I can regurgitate so much bullshit, I can make people believe that you can make a rocket ship using a spoon,a paper clip, a rubber band and a tube of toothpaste (watch, now someone’s gonna try it).
To the end times predictors: stop, just stop! Admit you’re wrong, stop trying to predict it, and stop heralding the end times in an effort to bilk people of their money and manipulate them. Because that’s what you’re actually doing. You’re a big fraud just manipulating people, and in the long run you make every other Christian look bad. So please, just stop it already.
Related articles
- Harold Camping Oct. 21 Rapture: God Stopped Saving People in May, Family Radio Says By Nicola Menzie (trinityspeaks.wordpress.com)
- Harold Camping Updates Rapture Prediction: October 21st (sfist.com)
- Is the Rapture (really) today? (roadsfromemmaus.org)
- Rescheduled Rapture Doesn’t Happen (newser.com)
- The End is Nigh! (dangeroustalk.net)
- Failed ‘Rapture’ prophet Harold Camping: “World will end on October 21″ (mirror.co.uk)
- Rapture Insurance – act now… you have less than 24 hours to go!!! (pinnaclelife.co.nz)
- Harold Camping avoids press despite end-of-days prediction (csmonitor.com)
- Apocalypse, again: Camping says today’s the day (cbsnews.com)
- Rapture 2.0: The end is near, again (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
More shameless self promotion
My spotlight at lulu.com is all set up!
This is the Author’s Spotlight page, featuring purchase links to the ebook versions of Black Mask & Pale Rider and Canyons of Steel.
There is also still hard copy versions available, if you’re a lot like me and enjoy reading paperback copies. Just click here to purchase direct from lulu.com.
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Black Mask & Pale Rider now available for Apple iPad
Image via Wikipedia
Hey!
Guess what!
Yes, this is just to remind everyone that, yeah, I wrote a book!
And it’s now available for iPad! You can purchase it through Apple iTunes Bookstore, or through the ePub iBook Store.
If you’re like me and still want a hard copy, you can buy that as well, direct from lulu.com by clicking here, or through Amazon.com by clicking here!
I also am looking forward to another announcement soon about another ebook reader that is going to be selling the book. Look for it on …
… hang on, that’s supposed to be a secret for now.
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Tuesday quotes
It’s Tuesday!
Here’s some quotes.
Sainthood emerges when you listen to someone’s tale of woe and not respond with a description of your own. ~author unknown
I truly believe that age — if you’re healthy — age is just a number. ~HUGH HEFNER, interview, Apr. 8, 2006
People don’t care what you know – they want to know you care. ~author unknown
Faults are thick where love is thin! ~author unknown
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