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July 04, 2009

Good News for the Economy!

(Jimmy Akin)


Posted by Jimmy Akin in Curios & Humor | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 03, 2009

Thinking about Buying a Car?

(Jimmy Akin)

Maybe you should. . . . Before it's too late.

CHT: Instapundit.

Posted by Jimmy Akin | Permalink | Comments (10)

June 30, 2009

Proverbs 18:17

(Jimmy Akin)

Proverbs 18:17 is a verse that every apologist ought to know by heart, because it describes a phenomenon that often occurs in apologetics. Here is how it goes:

"He who states his case first seems right,
until the other comes and examines him."

It's another way of saying that first impressions aren't always accurate. There can be more to a situation.

This principle also applies in other areas, like politics.

Take the current situation in Honduras, for example. The Miami Herald has a very interesting piece on the subject.

EXCERPT:

The greatest tourist attraction in Central America has always been politics. Diplomats stop by every few years, take a couple of snapshots of what's going on at the presidential palace, and then profoundly declare their opinions, devoid of context or history. This week's favorite diplotourism destination is Honduras, where the army Sunday arrested President Manuel Zelaya and booted him across the border to Costa Rica. In the Polaroid analysis, it's pretty clear what happened: ''A return to barbarism in our hemisphere,'' as Argentina's president Cristina Fernández put it.

She had plenty of company. ''The action taken against Honduran President Mel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and thus should be condemned by all,'' said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ``We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law.''

The OAS Permanent Council voted ''to condemn vehemently the coup d'etat staged this morning against the constitutionally established government of Honduras.'' U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded ``the reinstatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country and full respect for human rights.''

Here's a question for all these new-found defenders of Honduran democracy: Where were you last week?

GET THE STORY.

Posted by Jimmy Akin in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (8)

June 29, 2009

Queen Mary in the Mists

(Jimmy Akin)

Queen_mary

Perhaps there is some odd synchronicity with Tim J's haunting post, but this is a picture I was moved to take from my hotel hallway early Sunday morning as I was getting reach to leave the Long Beach National Square Dance Convention for the drive back to San Diego.

That drive should be only two hours, but with traffic it can be four five (and has been!), so I wanted to get an early start, and I happened to get up early enough that there was a lot of fog in the area.

The fog was so bad that when I got on the toll road to bypass a bunch of early traffic, I could not read the signs announcing the oncoming toll booths, making me wonder about traffic safety. Nevertheless I got home fine, despite all the fog.

The kind of fog you could hit an iceberg in. 

This post isn't about that, though. It's about the ship that you can see between the palm trees in the center of the picture (look for the black and red smokestacks; click to enlarge). 

The ship is the Queen Mary, which sailed as part of the Cunard-White Star Line in the mid-20th century before being retired and permanently anchored in Long Beach as a tourist spot.

I've never been aboard the Queen Mary. That'll have to wait for another trip (traffic and all, y'know). But I have encountered it in various ways.

For example, its gorgeous interiors were used as the setting of the outstanding and cinematically dazzling X-Files episode Triangle (one of the very best of the whole series).

Beyond the way the X-Files treated the ship, it's also reputed to be haunted, with various reports of ghostly happenings since it was permanently moored in Long Beach, with past guests supposedly making posthumous appearances, including soldiers who were housed on the vessel when it was used as a troop ship during World War II. (Bunks, apparently, were stacked in the central ballroom, with some bunks reaching almost to the ceiling.)

On that basis, it's also the location of the climax of Tim Powers' novel Expiration Date, which is one of my most favorite Tim Powers novels. It's simply marvellous--chocked full of audacious inventiveness, action, and humor. I love it!

It also mentions the billeting of troops that took place on the ship during World War II.

And the ship has a connection (believe it or not) to my square dancing life.

One of the past presidents of my square dance club was named Vic. He passed away a couple of years ago, when I was president of the club (before I was its caller), and I spent time with Vic during his final illness, trying to provide companionship and making whatever conversation he felt up to.

One of the things he talked about was the fact that he had been housed on the Queen Mary during World War II. He was one of the soldiers billeted in the ball room. 

Of course, I told him about Tim Powers' novel as part of passing the time.

And so, though I haven't yet been aboard the Queen Mary, it still has a special status for me. I look forward to going aboard and seeing it for myself.

This weekend, though, I couldn't resist snapping a picture of it through the morning mists.

Oh . . . and what's that ghostly ring of light around the ship in the picture? An electronic image artifact? A reflection in the hotel hall's window of the iPhone's circular camera, caused by holding it close enough to the window that the hall lights wouldn't get in the picture? A spectral manifestation of Koot Hoomie Parganas, Thomas Edison, Sherman Oaks, or (shudder) Loretta deLarava?

You decide.


Posted by Jimmy Akin in Travel | Permalink | Comments (4)

Startling Pattern Emerges

(Tim Jones)

Cemetery
It's like they're all just waiting for us...

Hey, Tim Jones, here.

I think my grandfather's death was the first that really affected me as it happened, though I understood the concept of death, having seen a lot of T.V. westerns, along with media coverage of the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, the Munich Olympics and other deadly events.

I've seen a number of deaths, since, and taken note of many more, but the tight grouping of celebrity deaths in the last week has made me look back over my experiences of death, and I have begun to sense a pattern.

Stay with me, here. I'm no conspiracy nut, but it begins to appear that no one is safe, and that the chances of death for any one of us - by my rough figures - approaches 100%. For instance, the older I get, the more people in my general age group pop up on the news, having died in one way or another and it is most often treated as a surprise, if not a shock.

But the shock, to me, may be unjustified. I don't want to start a panic, but it looks to me like we may all be headed for the cemetery.

"Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Psalm 90:12


Last week we heard first, of course, of Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett, then Michael Jackson... next, Billy Mays and this morning I read that Fred Travalena and Gale Storm passed away.

I have no great observations to make, except to say that the only genuine shock for me would have been if Michael Jackson had somehow lived to a ripe old age. I did not see how he could manage much longer. Over the past few years he appeared to be a shell.

I have good memories of Fred Travalena, who often appeared on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, was all over the variety show circuit, and also starred with Rich Little, Frank Gorshin and other master impressionists on The Kopycats - a comedy show (which I never missed if I could help it) built around impressions. He was also an extremely prolific and successful voice actor.

Most people may not know anything much about Gale Storm, but my wife will remember My Little Margie (which was old already when we watched it) from our days as college students, when we could count our TV channels on one hand.

For a long time, when driving by a cemetery, I have had the distinct and unshakable sense that those dwelling under the tombstones are watching and waiting and maybe chuckling a little... laughing at the living and their frantic and petty preoccupations. Sometimes, I can't help but laugh, too.

This idea of the connectedness of the living and the dead runs deep in the human heart, and is confirmed in the doctrine of the Communion of Saints... which is just the Church expounding on the teaching of the Lord that "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."  (Luke 20:38).

(This post has been carefully cross-posted by hand at Tim Jones' blog Old World Swine, for double your blogging pleasure)

Posted by Tim Jones in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (8)

June 26, 2009

Entertainer

(Jimmy Akin)

Posted by Jimmy Akin in Travels | Permalink | Comments (8)

First Shaky Video

(Jimmy Akin)

Sorry for the poor quality, but I'm just learning how to do this.

Posted by Jimmy Akin in Travels | Permalink | Comments (5)

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