[café on General Uprising in Vung Tau on 3/17/24] Last night’s hard rain has the cafe’s owner reminiscing about her village. Going to school in ao dai, she had to pull up her long shirt and rolled up her pants. Ao dai literally means “long shirt.” For the chubby seller of lottery tickets, it was leeches she recalls, “The footpath would be flooded. There were so many leeches. They were this big. I was scared to death! There was no way I would wade into that.”
Lest we forget there was that picture in The National Inquirer ( about 20 years ago) of Bill Clinton shaking a bald gray alien's three fingered hand. I said to the check out girl at the Rite Aid check out line: "Damn, Hillary don't look so good without her authentic, French made, horse hair wig on? Don't she?" The check out girl, nonplussed, seemed to be looking at me like she smelled cheap booze on my breath.
I had a t-shirt of Bat Boy that I wore to tai chi class in Boston. The teacher, an ex soldier from Taiwan, was impressed and credulously asked me if it was real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy_(character)
I think Weekly World News was successor to earlier garish tabloids that I remember seeing as a kid in the 50s. Sometimes they would show scenes from car wrecks. Body parts strewn around and mangled corpses. I didn't have to be furtive looking at these lurid tableaux, the way I did when sneaking a peak at Playboy Playmates. Once we became a kinder, gentler society we didn't permit the public display of gore, which provides moral cover for not having to show dead bodies at terrorist massacres. Sandy Hook and all those dead children that nobody but officials ever saw. If we say there were 6M dead bodies, you better believe it! Have you no decency?
During the twentieth century I encountered the following in a low-brow satirical supermarket tabloid – it was presented entirely straight, with no quotes from improbably titled non-existing books or whatever – either the cynics putting out the paper thought it was already humorous enough and/or they were taking Pascal’s wager into account and hoped that publishing it might count as a good deed which would affect their fate in the next life, or the one after that, if any.
It blew my mind because I didn’t expect an article quoting Billy Graham to contain so many self-evident truths.
from The Weekly World News, 1998:
In a review of Reverend Graham’s writings, sermons and interviews, five themes emerge – five principles that he believes every human being should strive to live by in order to join God in Heaven. They’re based on the Bible and on Reverend Graham’s own experience. Here are the five ideas Billy Graham stresses over and over again in his written and spoken words. Practice them in your daily life and Heaven is definitely in your future.
Pray regularly
Reverend Graham has often said that too many people use prayer as a last resort – praying only when they need God to get them out of a jam. But as long as people think of God as some kind of errand boy or lifeguard, Heaven will always be out of reach. Jesus tells us God wants to be our friend. You wouldn’t treat a friend that way. You want to spend time just talking and listening to your friends, enjoying their company. God wants us to visit Him regularly – for no other reason than that we like Him and He likes us. So it’s important to spend time in prayer every day, even when things are going well.
Love others
This doesn’t mean we have to “feel” loving toward everyone all the time. We are human and sometimes other people are going to upset us. The point is that we should act in loving ways – even to people who aren’t very lovable. Remember Jesus said that if we’re only kind to people who were kind to us, it means nothing. Even people who don’t have God in their lives do that. The thing that sets believers apart is their willingness to try to love even difficult people.
Read the Bible
Reverend Graham says even he has not done as much Bible reading as he feels he should have. “I wish I had studied a great deal more. I wish I knew the Bible better than I do,” he said not long ago. But he says it’s never too late to start. He says that studying and reading the Bible can not only lead us toward Heaven, it can also help us get more enjoyment from our lives on Earth.
Resist temptation
The charismatic evangelist admits that in the past he spent too much time railing about hellfire and damnation. “I was too emotional in my early years,” he says. Nevertheless, yielding to temptations of the flesh can give the Devil a grip on your life and pull you away from Heaven. When asked how he has managed to avoid the indiscretions that have brought down other, weaker evangelists, Reverend Graham says one prayer always works: “Lord, help me RIGHT NOW!” God will help us resist temptation if we ask Him.
Be humble
Always remember, if there’s good in your life it’s God who put it there. Taking credit for God’s kindness will only separate you from Him and His Kingdom. To be humble is to be teachable. We all have a lot to learn. And an openness to learning more about God is consistent with citizenship in Heaven.
Of course, no one can practice these five things perfectly. Reverend Graham freely admits that even he has fallen short of the mark many times. But doing your best to practice these principles will ensure you a place in Heaven.
[end of quote from Weekly World News]
In the interest of greater ecumenicism I would expand Reverend Graham’s advice just a bit – for “pray regularly” I would say “pray or meditate regularly”,and I would broaden the reading material from the Bible to devotional, spiritual, and philosophical literature from other wisdom traditions of the seeker’s choice. I particularly liked Graham’s admission he had overdone the “hellfire and damnation” stuff in his earlier years.
May the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on our souls, if any.
For some reason, that last pic looks like Jill Biden before she went on a diet and stole the drapes to make herself a new dress.
Lest we forget there was that picture in The National Inquirer ( about 20 years ago) of Bill Clinton shaking a bald gray alien's three fingered hand. I said to the check out girl at the Rite Aid check out line: "Damn, Hillary don't look so good without her authentic, French made, horse hair wig on? Don't she?" The check out girl, nonplussed, seemed to be looking at me like she smelled cheap booze on my breath.
I had a t-shirt of Bat Boy that I wore to tai chi class in Boston. The teacher, an ex soldier from Taiwan, was impressed and credulously asked me if it was real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy_(character)
I think Weekly World News was successor to earlier garish tabloids that I remember seeing as a kid in the 50s. Sometimes they would show scenes from car wrecks. Body parts strewn around and mangled corpses. I didn't have to be furtive looking at these lurid tableaux, the way I did when sneaking a peak at Playboy Playmates. Once we became a kinder, gentler society we didn't permit the public display of gore, which provides moral cover for not having to show dead bodies at terrorist massacres. Sandy Hook and all those dead children that nobody but officials ever saw. If we say there were 6M dead bodies, you better believe it! Have you no decency?
During the twentieth century I encountered the following in a low-brow satirical supermarket tabloid – it was presented entirely straight, with no quotes from improbably titled non-existing books or whatever – either the cynics putting out the paper thought it was already humorous enough and/or they were taking Pascal’s wager into account and hoped that publishing it might count as a good deed which would affect their fate in the next life, or the one after that, if any.
It blew my mind because I didn’t expect an article quoting Billy Graham to contain so many self-evident truths.
from The Weekly World News, 1998:
In a review of Reverend Graham’s writings, sermons and interviews, five themes emerge – five principles that he believes every human being should strive to live by in order to join God in Heaven. They’re based on the Bible and on Reverend Graham’s own experience. Here are the five ideas Billy Graham stresses over and over again in his written and spoken words. Practice them in your daily life and Heaven is definitely in your future.
Pray regularly
Reverend Graham has often said that too many people use prayer as a last resort – praying only when they need God to get them out of a jam. But as long as people think of God as some kind of errand boy or lifeguard, Heaven will always be out of reach. Jesus tells us God wants to be our friend. You wouldn’t treat a friend that way. You want to spend time just talking and listening to your friends, enjoying their company. God wants us to visit Him regularly – for no other reason than that we like Him and He likes us. So it’s important to spend time in prayer every day, even when things are going well.
Love others
This doesn’t mean we have to “feel” loving toward everyone all the time. We are human and sometimes other people are going to upset us. The point is that we should act in loving ways – even to people who aren’t very lovable. Remember Jesus said that if we’re only kind to people who were kind to us, it means nothing. Even people who don’t have God in their lives do that. The thing that sets believers apart is their willingness to try to love even difficult people.
Read the Bible
Reverend Graham says even he has not done as much Bible reading as he feels he should have. “I wish I had studied a great deal more. I wish I knew the Bible better than I do,” he said not long ago. But he says it’s never too late to start. He says that studying and reading the Bible can not only lead us toward Heaven, it can also help us get more enjoyment from our lives on Earth.
Resist temptation
The charismatic evangelist admits that in the past he spent too much time railing about hellfire and damnation. “I was too emotional in my early years,” he says. Nevertheless, yielding to temptations of the flesh can give the Devil a grip on your life and pull you away from Heaven. When asked how he has managed to avoid the indiscretions that have brought down other, weaker evangelists, Reverend Graham says one prayer always works: “Lord, help me RIGHT NOW!” God will help us resist temptation if we ask Him.
Be humble
Always remember, if there’s good in your life it’s God who put it there. Taking credit for God’s kindness will only separate you from Him and His Kingdom. To be humble is to be teachable. We all have a lot to learn. And an openness to learning more about God is consistent with citizenship in Heaven.
Of course, no one can practice these five things perfectly. Reverend Graham freely admits that even he has fallen short of the mark many times. But doing your best to practice these principles will ensure you a place in Heaven.
[end of quote from Weekly World News]
In the interest of greater ecumenicism I would expand Reverend Graham’s advice just a bit – for “pray regularly” I would say “pray or meditate regularly”,and I would broaden the reading material from the Bible to devotional, spiritual, and philosophical literature from other wisdom traditions of the seeker’s choice. I particularly liked Graham’s admission he had overdone the “hellfire and damnation” stuff in his earlier years.
May the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on our souls, if any.
Does anyone miss that constantly whiny concerned look on that pile of excrement Rochelle Walensky?
Now, we've got that manic nuttier-than-squirrel-poop look from Mandy Cohen. I'm not sure which is worse.
Lihn's captcha test for living humans:
- Select the pictures of Chicago from the available images.
Certainly some Biden bots will reveal themselves. Not all of us can be of the living.