Now that everything has relatively calmed down, a photoshop done by someone more talented than I –

It’s been an interesting past couple of days. Hopefully it’s all calmed down by now — while I do have to expressly thank Fr. Sibley for the increased attention to my site lately. I’ve had record numbers of visitors in the last 3 days due to the link from A Saintly Salmagundi.

Incidentially, I had to look up the definition of Salmagundi – here’s the first definition listed for it: “A salad of chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, and onions, often arranged in rows on lettuce and served with vinegar and oil.” There’s some irony in that, I’m sure.

Granted, most of the attention I received was under the pretense of my words being “whining,” resembling a Cookie Monster (?!), blasphemous, “in a snit,” and not to mention judgemental and uncharitable. Go figure!

Thanks to Ed, who brought new light to the situation, in many ways.

But enough of this. Tonight’s Hallowe’en! I’ve got big big plans.

EDIT: Hello Saintly Salad fans, who have clicked over here due to his “uncharity” link. First of all, “uncharity” is an interesting (and slightly archaic) word to choose in describing the poster. IT’S A JOKE. Let’s get a little more lighthearted in here.

But since you’re here, let’s make the best of it. Fr. Sibley linked to a comment referring to the Revolve bible I’m examining. Here’s my proposal and here’s the description of it on a Christian bookstore webpage.

So what’s your perspective on this venture? Is it a good thing to give the Bible a makeover, reformatting it as a teen fashion magazine? I’m curious to know.

I HATE driving in the snow.

(thank you, that is all)

Variations on the Word Love

This is a word we use to plug

holes with. It’s the right size for those warm

blanks in speech, for those red heart-

shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing

like real hearts. Add lace

and you can sell

it. We insert it also in the one empty

space on the printed form

that comes with no instructions. There are whole

magazines with not much in them

but the word love, you can

rub it all over your body and you

can cook with it too. How do we know

it isn’t what goes on at the cool

debaucheries of slugs under damp

pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-

seedlings nosing their tough snouts up

among the lettuces, they shout it.

Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising

their glittering knives in salute.

Then there’s the two

of us. This word

is far too short for us, it has only

four letters, too sparse

to fill those deep bare

vacuums between the stars

that press on us with their deafness.

It’s not love we don’t wish

to fall into, but that fear.

this word is not enough but it will

have to do. It’s a single

vowel in this metallic

silence, a mouth that says

O again and again in wonder

and pain, a breath, a finger

grip on a cliffside. You can

hold on or let go.

-Margaret Atwood

In addition to being labeled “whiny” by someone I don’t even know – today I had an opportunity to be labeled something else. In this case, it was actually a positive experience.

It happened this afternoon in my grad rhetorical criticism class. One of the students who is just now learning about rhetoric was talking about the concept of ethos. Ethos is the aspect of rhetoric concerned with the character of the speaker. It involves a study of rhetors’ good will, good judgement, and good character inherent within their messages.

She was struggling with trying to define how important of a role ethos plays in perceiving messages. She then remembered going to the teaching orientation session I spoke at in early September. She said out of all the profs and student teachers who shared that day, I had the most ethos. She said after hearing me speak, she was reassured and felt like she could actually be a Teaching Assistant.

She must have gone on about my speaking presence and speech content for about 5 minutes. She said I looked confident and sounded articulate. It was really a nice surprise have someone compliment me like that.

It’s moments like these (while few and far between) that reassure me I’m in the right place at the right time in my life.

Blog Wars, part deux. (and here you thought you had it bad!)

I love the smell of controversy on a Wednesday. It would seem that I’ve frustrated a Fr. Bryce Sibley.

Here’s the history of it all. He posted this lovely tirade/analysis against a Valtrex commercial. Segments: The basic gist of it was this – there was this woman who had herpes (presumably from whoring around) and wanted to keep on with her life, so takes this medicine to keep living her lifestyle. [...] So the basic message is – Valtrex helps you go back to your harlot lifestyle even though you have genital herpes which should really be making you reconsider the things you did to get this disease.

Growing up in the Church (or my two years of Bible college) I must have missed the passage in the Gospels where Jesus accuses women of “whoring around.”

Academy Girl referenced his page in her comments to my post.

I went over, read his post and responded. Here’s what I said: These women have good points. [several women objected to his assumption of how women obtain herpes] Words are like stones — just be careful that you’ve got your aim right before you start throwing them around. Otherwise you may end up hurting people you don’t intend.

Matthew 7:1-3 — “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

I thought that was the end of it. I stated my opinion, wasn’t really inflammatory (despite wanting to be), and thought that was the end of the story.

Apparently not.

Here’s what his post this morning reads:

Some of you have been wondering what is with pictures of the behind-kicking tough guys being apparently randomly posted on my blog over the past few days. It has been my attempt to establish equilibrium or balance out the chi or whatever you call it on my blog as a result of all the whining going on over my Valtrex advertisement comments – whining even going on in other blogs (read the post, and then read the comments). I am usually one to let discussions in the comments area rage without interfering, but the constant harping by certain individuals on this topic and their inability to see what I was really trying to say began to really get on my nerves. I tried banning them, but they have various IP addresses, so they keep coming back. I am going to stick by my policy and not get into any long discussion or interfere, but I will make a brief retort here.

ARGH.

So lots of people are apparently coming over here to see what the “whining blog” has to say.

Here’s my retort, I’m posting it here — because I have a feeling it’ll be deleted over there:

Please don’t flatter yourself to think your “righteous” post below (re: Valtrex) inspired my post you’ve linked to. It didn’t. Someone who regularly reads your site merely pointed me the way to your page in her comments.

Becky Bennetch.

There. Enough said.

Things like this do make Wednesdays a little more interesting, I will have to admit!