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"180"




You're mysteriously transported to 1939. You're a civilian outside a Nazi concentration camp. Soldiers have just shot and dumped hundreds of Jews into a shallow grave. Some of these Jews aren't dead, but you've just been ordered to get into a bulldozer and fill in the hole. If you refuse the soldiers will kill you and add your body to the grave. What do you do?

You're taken back a few years, before the carnage begins. You find yourself in a hotel room with a high powered rifle in your hands, aimed out the window, the sight centered on Hitler's chest. Knowing what you know about what he will soon set in motion, do you pull the trigger?

You find yourself transported decades earlier. You're a nurse in a hospital, and before you in a crib is the new born Adolf Hitler, the child who will one day murder 11 million people, including 6 million Jews... Do you place your hand over it's face and smother it?

Is it ever justifiable to take an innocent life? The Babe hasn't committed any crime. The new Führer has yet to begin his campaign of extermination. Those bodies in the grave, some still alive, cannot help the circumstances of their birth. What do you do?


E's Monday Mishmash


You know what? I like The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. I like it a lot. I watched it Saturday afternoon for the 4th or 5th time. I know it catches a lot go flack, but the haters are just ticked that it's not a Vin Diesel flick. But I love Lucas Black. I don't think we get to see enough of this young man in movies or TV. I know, I know, Tokyo Drift is basically "Karate Kid" with ricers... albeit fast ones... but I love just love this movie.

In all fairness to the film, the second outing 2 Fast, 2 Furious isn't a great film at all. It's a very poor sophomore outing (on it's own*) with a weak plot, though it does advance the mythology somewhat (as did Tokyo Drift), but the way I see it, the first two films enjoyed some continuity in that Paul Walker stars in both. The third outing, Tokyo Drift messes with the continuity thing very differently, in that Vin Diesel shows up at the end, and one main character, Han, dies... which is strange, because Han is in Fast and Furious, the 4th film. The events of Fast and Furious take place before the third film, as one scene shows Han saying he's going to Tokyo where he's heard about an interesting racing scene happening. Strange continuity, but I love these films... especially Tokyo Drift. But Lucas Black is a good actor, and has far more depth than the likes of Shia LeBeouf!

*Strange Continuity - It's all explained here.





One of the most intriguing lines in Tokyo Drift, to me, is what the Yakuza uncle said to his nephew in reprimand... for an "overlooked detail"...

For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost
For want of a horseshoe the steed was lost
For want of a steed the message was undelivered
For want of the undelivered message the war was lost

Speed-- too much of it --allows for greater slacking in one's attention to detail. No detail is trivial. Every step on any journey of any distance is important.




Scientists have proven wrong, it is feared, the foundation upon which modern physics is built.

Speed of light 'broken' at CERN, scientists claim

The science world was left in shock when workers at the world’s largest physics lab announced they had recorded subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light.

If the findings are proven to be accurate, they would overturn one of the pillars of the Standard Model of physics, which explains the way the universe and everything within it works.

Einstein’s theory of special relativity, proposed in 1905, states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But researchers at the CERN lab near Geneva claim they have recorded neutrinos, a type of tiny particle, travelling faster than the barrier of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second.

The results have so astounded researchers that American and Japanese scientists have been asked to verify the results before they are confirmed as a discovery.

If it turns out to be true, don't expect too many people to be banging the drum for the "new world order" in the physical world. Change comes slowly to enlightened thinkers. Especially when said change threatens to alter the established order; careers, fortunes, prestige, and power could be lost. Truth get's blurred when fortunes, careers, and power structures are threatened.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) had this to say about Truth...
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

This is seen even today in the fields of medicine and physical science. As it was in the days of Galileo, so it is today: western medicine, man-made global warming, evolution. Anyone who publicly doubts these canons is branded a heretic, or 'flat-earther,' and no better than a racist.

Regarding Medicine and Physical Science, there is too much money to be made off the fear of the eschewing the former to lift its metaphorical boot from the throats of its victims, and too much ideological capital already spent to allow the latter to ever admit its obvious flaws.

Here's a truth: The unregenerate heart will always seek to build its fortune on fear, be it of the personal or the preying upon variety, and fear will drive it to untold mongeries to build its fortunes higher than mere necessity dictates.

Avarice is king, necessity and truth be damned.

Take a quick read of Psalm 114. I'll wait...

There are many people, in many Christian circles who will tell you that God doesn't send storms or earthquakes to judge people, cities, or nations. Trouble with this point of view is a whole host of Old and New Testament examples of just that. So what are we to make of last month's earthquakes- two on the same day? Add to that question the strafing of the east coast by hurricane Irene? The extreme drought condition in Texas, and the fires that now burn there? California always seems to be burning... Coincidence?Is that what all this is?

A question has been nagging me for the last several years; a question I've tried very hard to ignore. Truth is, I didn't want to think about it, let alone write about it, or put in the inevitable toll of hours in research the question will involve-- I say 'will' because I've only just begun to dig into that research, and the writing will take more time than this one post. Quite honestly, I don't know if I'm writing a book or if I'm just answering a simple question with a rather longish answer.

Without belaboring the issue here's the question that's been hounding me for the last three or more years:

How much will it take-- how sinful must this world become --before God steps in and says 'enough is enough'?

While I've been to several other countries in my life all of them were when I was considerably younger, so I'm not going to try and over analyze the cultures of other countries, but stick primarily to this country, the United States of America.



Here's a link to Mark Sisson's Blog, Mark's Daily Apple where you can get the scoop on going primal. This is a 30-day challenge to a healthier you. Here also is a link to a flyer you can post on your refrigerator.

Now comes 'disclaimer' time. I don't subscribe to Mark's whole caveman deal, and diets from 100,000 years ago; I don't buy into the whole evolution thing. But! Everything I've read elsewhere bears out Mark's conclusions as to diet and exercise; what is optimum and what should be avoided at all costs.

All this comes from an excellent book called Primal Blueprint, by Mark Sisson. This is a very detailed read-- lots of background and supporting data. The diet will be the hardest thing you try to do. Why? Because the diet is 'primal'... it harkens back to the days before the cultivation of grains. Can you imagine NOT eating bread? Cereal? ANYTHING with some sort of grain in it? Including beans and legumes? It's not easy to do. But the ultimate benefit to your body and overall health is enormous. I credit this approach to much of my own gains, or rather, loses.

Can you swear off ALL grains, beans & legumes for 30 days?


At Mark's Daily Apple, there's an ad at the top of the right column where you can receive a free 92-page eBook that outlines the whole Primal experience without all the chemistry lessons and nutrient breakdowns in the big book. Just give him your email address and you'll get a download link. This eBook is just enough to get you curious, I think... enough to where you just may decide you need to buy the book. I do get emails from Mark once or twice a week, because of this.

But Going Primal is much more than just diet. Here's an interesting bit of trivia. Did you know that going barefoot is healthier for you than wearing shoes? Shoes, in the long run, actually do more harm than good.

Getting and staying physically healthy is the best way to reach your potential in all the other thing(s) God has called you to do.

I heard Mayor Bloomberg recite the last several lines of an American Poet Laureate Billy Collins (2001-2003), a poem called The Names. It's hard to get any meaning from any stanza of poetry, let alone from the last few lines of any work, let alone from an unknown bit of verse from an obscure (as most American Laureates are) poet; everyone knows Shakespeare, and no one really struggles to understand his context or where it fits in the 'here and now'. The lines were meant to be moving, I'm sure, and perhaps the poem, in it's entirety, is.

I understand the reasoning behind The Names... it's what we do each year on September 11. We recite the names of 3,966 people taken from us (not counting terrorists). But it didn't truly resonate... not for me it didn't. There was no great history behind it or depth to its tone. There was nothing truly great about the poem itself except the reason Collins felt compelled to write it. Perhaps it was the Mayor's poor delivery. I've always felt poetry is best received from the author's own voice-- only he knows where all the hidden emphases lay.

But there was a real American poet at Ground Zero yesterday. Real as in, we know you and love you.

Paul Simon performed a muted and ethereal version of The Sound of Silence. He knew where all the hidden emphases lay.



The song is both dirge and warning, and while its tone fit the mood of yesterday's memorial, I wonder at its appropriateness. But there's at least one woman in the video above who both appreciated Simon's performance, and sang along.