Climate Change Hits Mars

Hasn't anyone told the Martians to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions?

On the bright side, maybe Al Gore will be making the trip to investigate.

Why Technology Is Not Enough

Eye halve a spelling check her;
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye kin knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

A check her is a bless sing;
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule;
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore wee rote with checkers
Hour spelling was inn deck line,
Butt now when wee dew have a laps,
Wee are knot maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier;
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped words fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud;
And wee mussed dew da best wee can
Sew flaws are knot aloud.

That's why eye brake in two averse
Cuz eye dew want too please.
Sow glad eye yam that aye did bye
This soft wear four pea seas.

Applied Shakespeare 101

On Tuesday, Andrea and I attended a performance of William Shakespeare's Coriolanus by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Kennedy Center. While the RSC undoubtedly put as much oompfh into the production as one would expect from their world-class reputation, the play nonetheless failed to scintillate. Apparently, just being the greatest English playwright ever doesn't automatically guarantee that all your plays are great. While Andrea was so unimpressed that she spent most of the second half snoozing, I was busy redeeming the time by noting a number of useful passages from the play's text that should come in handy at one point or another.

For students of a Southern Baptist seminary: "Have we no wine here?" (Act I, Scene IX)

For those with fickle spouses: "He that depends upon your favours swims with fins of lead, and hews down oaks with rushes." (Act I, Scene I)

For one who must gracefully bow out of a conversation: "More of your conversation would infect my brain." (Act II, Scene I)

For professors plagued by troublesome students: "What's the matter you dissentious rogue that, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, make yourselves scabs?" (Act I, Scene I)

A sober warning for those who would become pastors: "Priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are." (Act II, Scene I)

And a friendly fare-thee-well for those situations when "'Bye" just won't do:
"All the contagion of the south light on you,
You shames of Rome!--you herd of--Boils and plagues
Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd
Farther than seen, and one infect another
Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese
That bear the shapes of men..."
(Act I, Scene IV)

Now, who ever said that a liberal arts education isn't useful? Ol' Bill is just full of practical wisdom and useful phrases for everyday life.

Favorite Blog

If you have a taste for satire, especially for satire that sends up the ridiculousness that plagues much of modern evangelicalism, check out a new blog called Tom In The Box. Headlines include: "Extreme Home Makeover Church Edition Hailed A Success," "Robertson Declares Himself the Winner of the 2008 Presidential Election," and "Amillenial 'No Behind' Novel Suffers from Lackluster Sales." It's quite funny stuff, but doesn't feel as sacreligious as sites like Landover Baptist

For the Rest of You

I realize that my previous post on "Online Style" may not be of interest to some folks who just don't like dressing up. Well, here's a link for you too: http://www.businessbibs.com

Arr.

Wonder Woman?

Wanna see something funny?

Ok. Go to Technorati.com.
Search for my blog's URL--"http//jeffcavanaugh.blogspot.com"--and see all the blogs that Technorati finds linking to mine.
Now go to page two, and look at the last entry.

Wonder woman? Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman? What on earth does a blog about an upcoming film adaptation of a comic book by the director of such small-screen classics as Buffy the Vampire Slayer have to do with me or my blog?

I'm confused. And, even more frustratingly, I can't find a single reference to my blog on the whole site, not even in its source code.


Maybe Baus can help me out here--he seems to be pretty good at philosophical analysis of comic-book characters.

Writing

When you write copy you have the right to copyright the copy you write, if the copy is right. If however, your copy falls over, you must right your copy. If you write religious services you write rite, and have the right to copyright the rite you write. Very conservative people write right copy, and have the right to copyright the right copy they write. A right wing cleric would write right rite, and has the right to copyright the right rite he has the right to write. His editor has the job of making the right rite copy right before the copyright can be right. Should Jim Wright decide to write right rite, then Wright would write right rite, which Wright has the right to copyright. Duplicating that rite would copy Wright right rite, and violate copyright, which Wright would have the right to right. Right?

I may have posted this before, but it's worth doing again. Check out the Semi-Pelagian Narrower Catechism. It's a hoot.

John Piper, Thug Style

John Piper, Alistair Begg, and others get into the hip-hop scene. I'm gonna see if I can get Mark to do his next sermon to some beats. 2 Corinthians 8, anyone?

TL4L!

Theological humor

Hat tip to Kent Hendricks.

It just so happened one day that Karl Barth, Paul Tillich,
and Reinhold Niebuhr find themselves all at the same time
at Caesarea Philippi. And who should come along but Jesus,
and he asks these three famous theologians, "Who do you
say that I am?"

Karl Barth stands up and says: "You are the 'wholly other,'
the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality
of Christomonism."

Following this, Paul Tillich states: "You are he who heals
our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and
existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the
theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of
our being and the ground of all possibilities."

Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one
breath: "You are the impossible possibility who brings to us,
your children of light and children of darkness, the
overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition
of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and
existential anxieties of our ontological relationships."

And Jesus looks at them and says, "What?"

Happy Reformation Day!

The Reformation Polka
by Robert Gebel

[Sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious"]

1. When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law;
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian! Oh...

Chorus:
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

2. When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter's profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints' Bull'tin board:
"You cannot purchase merits, for we're justified by grace!
Here's 95 more reasons, Brother Tetzel, in your face!" Oh...

[Chorus]

3. They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
"Are these your books? Do you recant?" King Charles did demand,
"I will not change my Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand!" Oh...

[Chorus]

4. Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting "George" as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin's model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek! Oh...

[Chorus]

5. Let's raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that 'catholic' is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance! Oh...

[Chorus]