Care to discuss Faulkner?

The Left Bank of the Charles guy got me off onto a whole different train of thought this morning and as a result I was late for doing my hay and feed and now I'm eating lunch at 3 p.m. which is really coffee break time. Of course it had nothing to do with the topic of his post...
He had a wonderful quote from William Faulkner which says a lot about life. I've thought the same thought in a different context. It is sort of like the guy who jumped off the bridge and said he had 30 seconds to think about why he didn't want to die and why he wished he hadn't done that. But, that one moment between anticipation and regret was something else!
I can't imagine walking across that field into the Yankee guns but I guess I do it every spring... No wonder I'm an emotional wreck...

There are no Atheists in the Foxholes...

I was looking at Michael Savage to see what is wrong with the world and I came across this article about a teen who was offended by a written prayer hanging on the wall and took the school to court.
For me it was another one of my moments where I realized 1. we are always making the wrong argument and 2. the general level of reasoning in the 21st century is not all that high.
Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
What does a written prayer full of vague generalities that has been hanging on the wall for 60 years have to do with the separation of church and state?
No one is forced to recite it or read it or do anything with it. I suppose you are not allowed to shoot spit-balls at it but you can't even shoot spit-balls anymore I have heard.
If the prayer said "divine spirit" instead of heavenly father?
It is fundamentally different from a "ritual" spoken prayer because there is no participation. It is a static display. At this point more of historical significance than anything else.
The article had a poll whether prayer should be allowed in the classroom. I don't think this was a prayer. And I think freedom of speech should allow prayer in the classroom. For my child I would rather no prayer than a prayer with subject matter that I would find theologically offensive and I do not want the schools actively reprogramming my kid's religious beliefs. But, I am not offended by reprinted fake Native American prayers on dream catchers or on inspirational posters or ritual Muslim prayers on wall hangings as long as they don't explode.

Anyway,  the girl says she did not notice the hanging until a friend pointed it out, so in fact it was not an obvious sort of "offense."So, do we not study "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in literature class anymore? I bet we don't... Answered my own question.
I think I will get my daughter to look for books with scripture in the in the School library and then sue. I wonder if the Atheist society would give her $30,000 for a scholarship?

And, the girl says she lost her faith at age 10 when her mother got sick and when the girl called on God he was not there to help her. So the whole thing is a vendetta over a misunderstanding of her own mythology religion at age 10? Great, more amateur theology. More amateur constitution law.
And she is now a little hero with "great strength of character."

But what can you expect from the courts. The USA now tortures prisoners, can lock you up and hold you forever on suspicion of witchcraft wrong politics being a Christian, being an Atheist, looking at a midlevel government employee wrong, being a terrorist, so the whole country from top to bottom has no appreciation for the constitution, civil liberties, or even understands what you should be offended about. (Like the TSA)

Since I have a diverse range of 39 readers my questions are.
1. Do homilies/written prayers in books and wall hangings have anything to do with the separation of Church and State?

2. Should you be able to sue for anything that offends you?

3, What about the girl's anger at God? Why does her personal problem have to become everyone's problem. Or rather if you really don't believe in God then why do you have to "convert" every one? Is that not the flip side of being a missionary? Or perhaps I should say, why do you care if people want to believe in mythology?

I also lost my faith at age 10 or somewhere around there. I found a book of sermon illustrations in the Bible Book Store in which I read word for word the illustration the revivalist had claimed as his own the night before. It was all a lie...

This whole thing could have been avoided if someone would have just used the phrase, "God works in mysterious ways," and then given her a short course on rationalization.

Now she has to be Carrie A. $%^&*ing Nation, Rosa Parks, and Susan B. Anthony and give the Atheist society woodies. A poster child, "Whoop! Whoop!" There is nothing quite like the earnest sincerity of a kid who has never been hungry and is standing up for something that doesn't matter.

Is there no real suffering in the world?

I went to the North West Ag Show

I went to the Northwest Ag Show in Portland on Tuesday. It was interesting.
I may become a dealer for a mineral supplement. If I think I can make money with only a 15% mark up. I am not sure this is good thing for me as I tend to knock a few dollars off for people just to build empathy.
You can check it out at www.grolicks.com
I am interested as there is nothing really like it on the market. It lets you give grass fed beef a little extra protein, minerals, and energy in the winter when the grass is not so good. Grass fed beef is what sells here. Grain fed is bad. Unless I am eating it... Grass fed is marketing BS...
Speaking of Marketing BS, right next to the grolicks guy were these guys who sell a device which exposes your irrigation water to magnetism. That is why I got started talking to Mr. Grolicks. I got bored with their speech after I found out the price.
They had photos and charts and all sorts of proof that it works. It does sound amazing. It softens hard water and I am sure it would grow the hair back on my bald spot that is always covered by a cap.
We listened to the speech and my brother held up one of the devices for a 1" line. They had them for 1" up to 8" water lines. They were little tubes with permanent magnets in them.
The fellow said it was "six" for the one my brother had and "8" for the big one. Or something like that. It was not $6 nor was it $60 or even $600. Not it was $6,000 and $8,000. And that is where he lost me.
I would rather $6,000 down on $30,000 worth of lime than $6,000 on a magnet in a plastic tube.
After hay selling moisture testers at the ag show for years and listening to people complain about the price of something you have to have, I was incredulous at the magnet booth. Actually, I bet you could make more money off spending $500 on a Delmhorst soil moisture tester and a couple boxes of gypson blocks and doing a good moisture management program than you could running your water through a magnet. Or $850 on an Acquaterr hand held probe which also has a built in pH meter.
But I digress...
Here is an example of the magnet scam...
Here is another discussion from HempUSA.com. (I think it is kind of funny)
Here is a disagreement...
I think I will try hooking up a few magnets to the water supply and see what happens. It will probably attract aliens. I worry about aliens...

New stereo in the shop

I was "gifted" a huge pile of reel to reel tapes and two Sony reel to reels.
Lots of classical music, a little easy listening from the early 1970's. Not exactly HiFi.
I guess I just didn't realize you could stuff 120 minutes of muddy sounding bland music on a reel to reel. I had a two-track from a radio station that used the whole tape and was fairly high speed. It sounded very good.
This makes good music for me to listen to whilst miss-measuring boards I am cutting for a pallet scales I am making.
Actually I gave the nice person some cash to take her kids sledding. And I saved her a trip to GoodWill.
Today I am going to dig out the reel of old Country and Western hits from 1971 which I found at a GoodWill in Eugene some 15 years ago.  120 Minutes of Conway Twitty should put me in fine form.

I am never allowed to make a mistake or do anything stupid

I have lived on this farm since, I don't know, 1975?
Over the course of those years we have only plowed next to the river two times in the fall. We have never left anything at the base of the hill leading out of the river bottom. The river has not significantly flooded in two years anyway.
This year we planted alfalfa near the river. We plowed and limed the ground. In the process we drug a lot of dirt into a low spot and then heavily seeded the low spot to oats and annual ryegrass.
This year the river came up twice. This last time it was high enough to flood out the dead truck we left in the field. I didn't think it was completely dead. I guess it is now.
The river is pretty much flowing through the low spot and I doubt there is any residue of the topsoil I drug into it or a sprig of annual or oats.
I am glad I didn't plow any more ground than what I did.
I see from my weather page that there has been another flood advisory issued for later this week.
Nice...

Birthday Party For my Father

Apparently I was supposed to invite people.
Anyway, Ralph, it you would like to take the Concord down here to Amity you are certainly welcome to attend. I'll even buy you a piece of pie...
It is around noon.
I am the short balding fellow with the red nose and squinty eyes.
It is at Ashes Cafe.
It was Sharon's idea as she is just that sort of nice person. It is for two old pluggers who are now 93. My father is one of them.
We could go to the Blue Goat afterwards for really expensive chocolate cake but they never even invited me to their one year anniversary so I am boycotting them.
I don't like events with more than five people so I plan on withdrawing into a shell of grumpiness.
Have a nice day...

Our Dear Leader Sings Al Green?

I was sitting around listening to Al Green and I discovered Our Dear Leader had used an Al Green song at a fundraiser. I queried my wife and she laughed at me. She said she didn't want to burst my bubble.
I've had a suspicion that being a middle aged white guy who likes Al Green is akin to a white college kid who likes Bob Marley only without the Chronic. I hope it has nothing in common with middle class white kids listening to rap.
I suppose this pretty much fits my understanding of Our Dear Leader being only slightly less Black than Bill Clinton.
I did see a pretty funny interview on OPB with David Stockman where he pointed out the ironic humor of an Alinsky inspired community organizer appointing the guy who nearly ruined GE and the Jobs Czar.
Check out this article, of course since Livingston once worked for Reagan he is a fraud and the hilarious quote at the end about GOP regressing into the extremist right. Funny because some of us think the GOP has completely sold out and should be just a tad more on the conservative side.
Speaking of irony, I am now watching a OPB story about a Korean War Vet who was tortured by his captors. Kind of changes your perspective now that Our Dear Leader has embraced change by basically accepting and normalizing the torture program set up by those evil neo-cons. Not to mention the loss of free speech and the right of Habeas Corpus which was pretty much a bipartison effort.
But, I digress...
I really hope the Reverend is not shilling for Mr. Hope and Change but I suppose the amazing conversion of Al Green is mythology anyway.
I really prefer George Clinton but I don't think he is going to give me a lift to the mother ship as I am not Black nor do I actually own any Parliament of Funk Albums.