Issue 56

News: My republishing of the King James Bible.
A few Issues back, I announced my intention to read the entire King James Bible and I got as far as Leviticus, but then I realized that instead of writing an essay about what I found in the Bible, It would make more sense to make a version of the Bible which incorporates my views in footnotes for short remarks and boxes of text for longer rants, as most youth study bibles do. This may be similar to the online Skeptics Annotated Bible, which I admire as a religious website, but unlike them, and indeed most other copies of the KJV, I intend to add the apocrypha, the dedication to King James himself (which is usually only in the British editions), and the Introduction by the translators about the translation (Which has rarely been republished since 1611), as well as an introduction by me about why I had written what I had written and why I had used the King James Bible as opposed to, say, the NIV (Because among other reasons, the KJV isn't still copywrighted [except in the UK] and the NIV is, and that people tend not to believe that the NIV is the literal word of God as the fine folks at Chick Publications do to the KJV). Of course, while the KJV is in the Public Domain in 99% of the world (The USA included), it is still protected by copywright after 400 years in Britain, so people there will most likely have to rely on imports unless I can somehow make the Cambridge University Press (The KJV's only royally sanctioned printer in the UK) relent into publishing.

Band Name: Servant David. It comes from Chapter 33 of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge where the titular character forces a choir in the church he is in to sing Psalm 109:10-15 (One of the best-kept secrets of the normally docile Poetry segments of the Bible) and one of the members of the choir says "Twasn’t made for singing. We chose it once when the gypsy stole the parson’s mare, thinking to please him, but parson were quite upset. Whatever Servant David were thinking about when he made a Psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I can’t fathom."

Film Idea of the Day: No real film Idea today, but if somebody actually intends to make a film version of The Scarlet Letter and actually wants to get it right this time, here is my prospective cast list of three of the four main characters (Pearl should be played by one [or several, as the novel covers 7 years of their lives] unknown):
Hester- Eva Amurri (Saved!)
Chillingworth-Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter)
Dimmesdale- Brad Dourif (Lord of the Rings, but for a better film see Wise Blood if you can.)

Film Review: A Man Called Peter. I recently saw this film about the scottish presbyterian minister-turned US Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall and was impressed by its touching portrayal of the minister, especially for a film where the main character gives a 5-minute sermon for every 10 minutes of film. Also of note, Ann B. Davis (aka Alice from The Brady Bunch) makes a brief appearance in the film and I was amazed that she had done other work outside the franchise. Anyway, for a film about a Mainline minister, it is very impressive.

Quote of the Day: "Fooled you, didn't I? You really thought I had it."
_______Charlie Bucket, Willy Wonka. This also comes from a recurring dream where I re-enact the "Tongues" scene from Saved! on a taping of The 700 Club.

Link of the Day: Crossroads of Booger County: A Webcomic about life, and love in a small Arkansas Town.

Issue 55

News: Roger Waters: Dark Side of the Moon.
Recently, I went to the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park (OK, it's now the first Midwest bank ampitheatre), where I had gone four years previous where I had seen The Who perform and Roger missed an entire verse of "Love Reign O'er Me". This time, I had gone to see Roger Waters perform with his new backing band (which included Nick Mason on some stops, this not being one of them). Fortunately, unlike the previous time, we managed to get seats inside the actual ampitheatre, which did not really do much for the rain which got all over my set/guitar list which I write up for every single rock concert to which I go. Anyway, the concert started with In the Flesh, which seems a natural choice to start his concerts with, seeing as he's named two tours, one solo, one Pink Floyd, after it. His use of the song may inspire me to use a somewhat similar song in terms of content, wildly different in terms of style, I've Got a Little list/As some Day it May happen (From the Mikado) to start concerts, relegating Psycho Killer to second (As soon as I can figure out the chords). The next song, Mother, was not one I recognized at first, but I ultimately did. The set's next song was "Set the Controls for the heart of the sun", which I did recognize from FLoyd's second album, and one of the last songs to feature Syd on Guitar, followed by another song used as a tribute to Syd, "Shine on You Crazy Diamond 1-5". This led to him performing two more songs from Wish You Were here: "Have A Cigar" and the title track. This set of songs was followed by four more songs I didn't recognize until I managed to Wikipedia his tour and found their titles "Southampton Dock", "The Fletcher Memorial Home", "Perfect Sense 1 and 2", and "Leaving Beirut". The only comment I have is for the last song, which was performed with the audience less critical of the song than when the tour started. The first set ended with the song "Sheep", which climaxed in the release of the ubiquitous Pink Floyd Pig with slogans like "Impeach Bush Now" and "Kafka Rules OK." Mentioning that, I wonder what became of the pig? Did somebody in the road crew fish it out for the next tour stop in Indianapolis or did some old couple in Tinley park watch in confusion as a deflated pig fell on their front lawns? With this said, we will go to the second half of the concert.
The second half of the concert was the entire album The Dark Side of the Moon. The album was played in sequence with the voices and sound effects which pop up all over the album, with all of "Speak to Me" and "On the Run" performed solely on the PA. The encore had five songs: "The Happiest Days of our Lives", "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2", "Vera", "Bring the Boys Back Home", and "Comfortably Numb". The only things of note are that the voices that trailed the second song were heard after the fourth, and that the guitarists all managed to mimic Gilmour's Immortal solos on "Comfortably Numb" very well.

Band Name of the Day: The Bald Sopranists. Name comes from the Ionesco play of the same name.

Film Idea of the Day: A boy wanting an extra ice cream cone on his birthday makes up a boy for writing on an Ice Cream store's birthday registry. Ultimately, the draft board finds out about this and tries to ask the boy and the friend he created to register. When the friend does not register, he is arrested for his murder. Will he prove his friend never existed or will he be executed?

Film Review of the Day: God Said Ha. This film shows Julia Sweeney reminiscing about her experiences with her dysfunctional family, and her (and her brother's) struggles with cancer. I had heard about this when I was listening to old episodes of "This American Life" on the web and heard her speaking about her struggles about religion. The only flaw was that she decided to mention that she was a member of PeTA, which we should all know of my views thereof.

Quote of the Day: "It is possible to make the Bible to say whatever we want it to."
________Minister Rob Bell on what may be the only truth about the Bible.

Link of the Day: talk.origins' official catalogue of creationist claims and how to debunk them.

Issue 54

News: Scientific Errors in the Bible.
Before I get to this week's spiel, I have two things to mention which have nothing to do with the things : 1) Today marks the one-year anniversary of the first time I posted one of my articles on this blog. 2)I went to see Roger Waters of Pink Floyd on his solo tour at Tinley Park last friday. It was an excellent concert and I should try to post a review of it in Issue 55. With these things said, let us talk about the subject at hand.
I was recently cruising Chick.com to see if Jack and Co. had released some new wacked out comics since my last visit and I noticed this article . If you don't have time to read it, it's about how the fine people at Chick.com claimed to have torn the Koran to shreds due to it having one scientific error. What the authors seem not to notice is that the Bible contains more scientific errors than one can shake a stick at. I won't go on at length about the veracity of Adam and Eve or the Deluge, as I have spoke about that issues ago. The only problem with the deluge which I haven't mentioned was that the Ark was over 450 feet long. One major problem was that this is approximately 120 feet longer than the longest wooden ship ever verified to be built, the schooner Wyoming. Even at the length of 330 feet, it had steel girders supporting it, and it had to be pumped from the first minute it went to water to the minute it finally sank. Judging by the results of that, if it really did exist, it was most likely impressive on land, but would sink like a stone the minute it came into water. Two other innacuracies can be studied in a legend where NASA scientists (in a legend that predates even NASA) notice that there was a missing 24 hours in the universe which were accounted for with two biblical passages (Joshua 10:12-3, and 2 Kings 20:8-11, both KJV, since it's the only Bible the people at Chick Publications trust) which either mention the Sun staying still or the sun moving back a few degrees. Unfortunately, the prevailing scientific knowledge is that the Earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa. Naturally, there's Leviticus 11, which has a whole mess fo scientific inaccuracies (like rabbits chewing their cud, bats being birds, and insects having four legs.) Another strange scientific error, in Job 39:13-7 and Lamentations 4:3, God claims that Ostriches leave their eggs to die after laying them. In reality, they're more careful with their eggs than most animals, caring for their chicks until they are one month old and can keep up with the adults. Even if they were as bad parents as God says they are, whose fault would it be then? There's seven errors mentioned and even more to be found.

Band Name of the Day: Kafka rules ok. It was on the pig at the Roger Waters concert which has yet to be reviewed.

Film idea of the Day: It is not as much of a film idea as it is for a rifftrax (link below) style site for commentary for Brady Bunch episodes. The commentaries have all the jokes you've always (most likely) been tempted to make about the series, and a reference to Absinthe is guaranteed in every commentary or your money back.

Film Review of the Day: No film review this time, although I must say that I have gotten into Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado recently. I reccomend listening to any recording of the opera, as long as it's unabridged, and its discs are evenly divided by act (DVDs are exempt from this qualification), while following the dialogue with a copy of the libretto (which I bought in Door County a few months ago), and if your copy has no dialogue (which most audio recordings don't), pause in between tracks to read the dialogue.

Quote of the Day: A lot of people say to me, "Why did you kill Christ?" I dunno... it was one of those parties that got out of hand, you know?
__________Lenny Bruce.

Link of the Day: The link that inspired my film idea section.