In a recent interview on Trinity Broadcasting Network, Ben Stein had this to say:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.

Really, Ben?? Really?! Science may make it more efficient or easier to kill people, thanks to newer technologies than rocks and tree branches, but I’ve read a good bit of history. Seems to me that people had no problems killing other people long before science was anything more than alchemists trying to turn lead into gold, and sometimes they even did it all in the name of God and religion.

Ben Stein is a disgusting piece of work. I’ve never thought much of him, but lately my apathy has been turning to loathing.

Orb: [standing outside closed bathroom door] Hey. You alive?

Lin: [brief silence] Um … yeah. Why?

Orb: [toddling down the hall] Just wondering.

It would take too long to explain. I have to walk Lin out to the truck and put today’s coffee grounds on one of my tomatoes.

Let’s just say I am probably an annoying person to live with and leave it at that, shall we?

It’s OK to forget people you once knew.

Anything more I might say now would only serve to diminish that simple and true statement.

The justice has been explaining his positions publicly more and more, and even delving into some thorny issues, like torture.

“I don’t like torture,” Scalia says. “Although defining it is going to be a nice trick. But who’s in favor of it? Nobody. And we have a law against torture. But if the - everything that is hateful and odious is not covered by some provision of the Constitution,” he says.

“If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib, and they are brutalized by a law enforcement person, if you listen to the expression ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ doesn’t that apply?” Stahl asks.

“No, No,” Scalia replies.

“Cruel and unusual punishment?” Stahl asks.

“To the contrary,” Scalia says. “Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.”

“Well, I think if you are in custody, and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody…,” Stahl says.

“And you say he’s punishing you?” Scalia asks.

“Sure,” Stahl replies.

“What’s he punishing you for? You punish somebody…,” Scalia says.

“Well because he assumes you, one, either committed a crime…or that you know something that he wants to know,” Stahl says.

“It’s the latter. And when he’s hurting you in order to get information from you…you don’t say he’s punishing you. What’s he punishing you for? He’s trying to extract…,” Scalia says.

“Because he thinks you are a terrorist and he’s going to beat the you-know-what out of you…,” Stahl replies.

“Anyway, that’s my view,” Scalia says. “And it happens to be correct.”

Scalia is one scary, scary man, and he’s going to be a Supreme Court Justice for a very, very long time … unfortunately.

“They should all just wear pastels and get over it. WE ARE THE STEPFORD WIVES.”
– Lin

Lin: And that super-collider blowing up the world? The chances of that happening are one in a google.

Orb: Oh boy. A google. A gooooooogle.

Lin: Besides, they have it wrong. It’s only going to mess up the rest of the universe. We’ll be OK.

Orb: Great. We’ll be the destroyers of the entire universe.

Lin: That’s probably how it all got started anyway.

Orb: Yes … and it’s been us doing it over and over, trapped in a never-ending time bubble, creating and destroying ourselves forever.

“We sent them a horse. If they choose to call it a zebra, that is their business,” said Schweitzer [Montana’s Democratic governor].

The story I pulled that quote from is about RealID and the problems the government is having getting some states to comply. Not a terribly interesting story, but I just love that quote. Too funny!

Lin: What were you planning to do tonight?

Orb: I don’t know. Why?

Lin: Mark finally called and he wants us to go hang out at the lake.

Orb: I guess we have to go don’t we? I want to see him.

Lin: Well, did you have anything planned?

Orb: Just the usual: eating, sitting around, watching TV.

Lin: Well, guess what? He and his girlfriend decided to get married on the way down here, and they are getting married tonight! We don’t have to get dressed up or anything.

Orb: Married?! Tonight?! Well, now we really have to go. What time?

Lin: 5 pm.

Orb: [panic attack]

Yeah, so, it looks like as soon as my brain fully engages (I was in the middle of a nap when he called), I will be having a full-blown panic attack about getting myself ready to go see a friend I haven’t seen in years and watching him get married to someone I have never met in a roomful of people I probably won’t know. It’s like social anxiety overload.

As usual, the focus of my panic is what I am going to wear. Oh sure, we don’t have to get dressed up, but there will, no doubt, be photographs, and I wouldn’t want to be immortalized in someone’s wedding photos looking like a geek or freak, no matter how casual the event. Then I’ll start panicking about having to be sweet, charming, intelligent, and non-insane in public.

Good thing I took a nap. Now I better go take a shower and do my hair and begin having a proper panic attack about this.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
– Ronald Reagan

This quote has been popping up a lot lately. It’s a great quote and couldn’t be more true, but people have forgotten the beast within is just as dangerous as the beast without, and losing our freedom doesn’t necessarily require being attacked or invaded by a foreign entity. We must be as diligent in not allowing our own government to curb our freedom as we are protecting our freedom from foreign influences.

And now, some more quotes to contemplate:

“As government expands, liberty contracts.”
– Ronald Reagan

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
– James Madison

“When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people fear the government, you have tyranny.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“Only Americans can hurt America.”
– Dwight Eisenhower

“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”
– Patrick Henry

If I could teach everyone on the planet one thing right now, it’s this:

If you just thought of it, it has already been thought of before, examined, studied, tested, created, bought, sold and discarded.

No really. It’s all been done before. All of it.

“One of Clinton’s laws of politics is, if one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to make you think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears, and the other one’s appealing to your hopes. You better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.”

–Bill Clinton stumping for John Kerry, 2004

I found my Messiah’s Handbook a few weeks ago, and then I promptly forgot that I had found it until this morning. Being in the mood to read some words of wisdom to get my day going, I opened it to a random page:

Pretend that you honestly
truly deeply want to know
who you are
where you came from
and why you are here.

Pretend you are willing
never to rest till yo know.

Now:

Can you imagine yourself
not finding out?

No, I cannot! OK, I can, but what I imagine isn’t a very pretty or happy existence. I guess that gives me something to think about today as I clean the kitchen and do something artsy-craftsy.

J: What do you desire?

Orb: Though I would like to desire nothing … being as that always makes life easier, I want more than anything to understand everything … and to not be alone in my understanding.

J: You are my protégé for a reason.

Orb: Care to share said reason?

J: You just did.

Lin: What are you doing?

Orb: Working.

Lin: I don’t see any work going on.

Orb. Look closer.

And…

Orb: This is going to be an assemblage piece. Collage with other stuff added.

Lin: You’ve gone from art…

Orb: Digital realism.

Lin: …to crafts.

Orb: Tell Duchamp that! Tell Picasso that!

Lin: You can’t compare yourself to them!

Orb: Yes I can. I kick their butts!

Moral of the story? It’s very difficult being an artist and living in a household with someone who doesn’t really “get” art unless it is photographic realism. Though he did look at the initial scribblings on my canvas and say “That’s one of your shapes. I’ve seen that before in your art.” That means I am on the right track, and really, that’s all I needed to hear from him.

He also said that women make better abstract artists, which would be great if I was doing an abstract work, which I am not. Methinks he needs to enroll in an art appreciation class.

Back to work! The canvas is calling!

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Occasionally, my husband sends me emails that are actually funny.