Blue Cord

I have been tagged in the Binary Biblical Studies Carnival 11111 meme by Jim at Idle musings of a bookseller. Although Jim changed the number from 31 to 63 through the addition of a digit, I still feel compelled to play along.

The rules are as follows:

1. Tag five Biblical studies bloggers.
2. Invent fictional posts that they might have written over the last month.
3. Link to the original meme post at Lingamish.

Here is my offering for the meme:

1. Christian Brady at Targuman: “The Study of the Targumim Matters. No, Really!”
2. Steve Cook at Biblische Ausbildung: “Why So-Called ‘Second Isaiah’ is Actually the Work of the 8th Century Prophet.”
3. Jin Yang Kim at Old Testament Story: “Daniel the Wise-Guy: Interpreting the Book of Daniel as a Marx Brother’s Routine.”
4. Calvin Park at Random Bloggings: “How to Get Your Church Youth Group Interested in Learning Akkadian.”
5. Chris Heard at Higgaion: ” Simcha Jacobovici Has Asked Me to Write His Next Script!”

Apparently there is a new movie coming out called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I know this because it has been advertised on every billboard, TV channel, cereal box, and Burger King glass I have seen lately.¹ Cable channels are also jumping in by running Indiana Jones marathons constantly or “documentaries” that explore some of the artifacts from the films. Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited about the fourth Indiana Jones film. I only hope it can live up to its advertising.

In the spirit of things, I thought I would get in on all the hype. After all, I love a good bandwagon. So, here is a link to a long lost letter sent to Dr. Jones explaining why he was denied tenure at Marshall College.

1. Yes, I know the Burget King tie-ins are actually kids toys, but I really miss the days when Burger King gave out actual drinking glasses with movie characters on them. [back]

Burger King has a new commercial. You can tell it is set in the future because almost everything is a clean shade of white. It starts out with a guy waking up in bed with a floating Burger King robot hovering over him. The man appears to be startled by the robot’s presence. The robot gives him a breakfast wrap and then makes a cup of coffee for him. The man continues to look at the Burger King robot warily. A woman (the guy’s wife?) walks in, looks at the robot with a somewhat sensual look, and says, “He’s so good with his hands.”

Am I the only one who finds this creepy?

As my readers know, I occasionally round up a list of things that annoy me and blog about them. My last installment was back on August, so I thought it was time for another edition. Having just returned from a ten-day trip, I thought I would do a travel edition of my pet peeves.

Here are just a few things that annoyed me while I was on the road:

• Official signs on the Interstate that tell us what food and gas are available at the next exit – There should be a law that says any restaurant or gas station that is listed on that sign must be within a half mile of the exit. I hate getting off the Interstate only to find that I have to go two or three miles away from the Interstate to find the store I want. On the flip side, I love the signs at the end of the exit ramp that tell which direction each store is and how far.
• Turn signals – I know it is common place to complain that people don’t use turn signals. But this is actually a complaint about people that do. On a highway, a turn signal is supposed to indicate your intention to change lanes. It is supposed to be turned on for a second or two before you change lanes, not as you are in the process of changing lanes. When you swerve into my lane in front of me at the last second, the fact that you turned on your blinker at that same moment is hardly helpful.
• People who don’t know how to drive an SUV – Being able to afford an SUV is not the same as being able to handle one. It is a large vehicle and is not driven the same as a car. When I drove buses in Alaska, I had to get a commercial drivers license. The fact that you can own and operate an SUV without any special training is ridiculous.
• Interstate exits that are inappropriately numbered – The Interstate system is designed to be logical. North-south routes are odd numbered. West-east routes are even numbered. Major arteries have numbers evenly divisible by five. And mile markers increase from west to east or north to south depending on the orientation of the Interstate. Exits are supposed to be numbered according to the nearest mile marker, but not all states comply with this convention. I find that annoying. If I know my exit number and my current location, that should give me the ability to calculate how far I have to go. When the exits are number sequentially instead of according to the closest mile marker, it messes up the system. For the record, Massachusetts and Connecticut both number their exits wrong.
• Interstates numbered incorrectly – While I am on the subject of Interstate numbering, I should point out that some Interstates are numbered incorrectly. By law, an Interstate with two numbers must end at another interstate, and international border, or an ocean. Interstates with three numbers are either loops or spurs. Loops begin and end at Interstates and have an even first number, while spurs, which have an odd first number, can simply run out. Some Interstates do not follow this logic. For instance, I–83 in Baltimore simply ends at the Inner Harbor, which violates the rules of Interstate numbering. To be consistent, the part of I–83 that runs inside of I–695 should be renumbered to something like I–383.
• Connecticut – I experienced four backups driving the 125 miles through Connecticut. This is twice as many backups as I experienced in the other fifteen states combined. Most of these backups could have been avoided. One was caused by a junction between one Interstate and another. There was only one lane on the exit between them, but things could have flowed smoothly if everyone had simply moved into the right lane and waited their turn. Instead, a large number of cars rushed to the front of the line and forced their way in. They blocked the left two lanes while trying to push their way into the front of the line. This backed up the traffic in all three lanes for two miles. At another spot, I experienced a three mile backup in the north-bound lane because people were rubber-necking to see an accident in the south-bound lane. (Flashing police lights are so mesmerizing.) I remember this from the five years I lived in Connecticut. Drivers in Connecticut are not the best drivers in the world, and this combined with a lack of manners makes driving in Connecticut a frustrating experience.
• People who think signs don’t apply to them – When I got home to my parking garage, I was presented once again with a familiar sight: SUVs, trucks, and station wagons parking in spaces marked “Compact Cars Only.” I drive a station wagon, so I don’t park in these spots. But apparently other people think that these rules don’t have to be followed. So, they park in these spots, which means that people in small cars can’t open their car doors. Often, an SUV parking on one of these spots takes up two spots, which means there are fewer available spaces for the rest of us. Apparently, these people are willing to inconvenience lots of other people just to avoid parking twenty feet farther from the door.

Granted, most of these are minor inconveniences, but when you experience all of them multiple times over the course of a ten-day trip, they add up.

Most people have heard of the Phelps cult, a group that has become notorious for picketing the funerals of gay men, funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pretty much any other event which they can somehow connect (no matter how weakly) to homosexuality. Today they picketed the University of Wisconsin, where three students were killed in a fire. The announcement on their website said

Thank God for three more dead students! God sent the Fires! These brats are the fruit of america [sic], and God is punishing you by cutting them off. You were blessed by God with those children, and you raised them to be bastards and whores. You taught them that God is a liar, that it is okay to be gay and He loves you anyway. You failed to teach them about the Wrath of God.

If you don’t know them, you can either (a) consider yourself lucky, or (b) check them out on their website at www.godhatesfags.com. I am not going to link to their website, lest the link increase their rating on search engines.

I first encountered the Phelps group when they were trolling on a Baptist discussion list back in 1994. When they picketed the Episcopal convention in Philadelphia a few years later, I managed to sneak through the police line that had been set up to protect them. While they were holding up their reprehensible signs, I held up mine that said, “God Loves Gays.” Unfortunately, the picture at the right is the only shot available of the event. It was taken back when digital cameras took pictures at 64 kilopixels.

A friend of my sent me a link to a site that is taking a different approach. It is similar to something I do whenever I teach Leviticus, but they have taken it to a new level. They are staging counter-protests with signs that announce God’s judgment against that other abomination: shellfish. After all, we can’t afford to pick and choose the verses we apply, and a much larger percentage of Americans eat shrimp than engage in homosexual activities (such as nude shuffleboard). These counter-protesters hold up signs that say “Stop the Shrimp-Eater’s Agenda” and “Love the Shrimper — Hate the Shrimp”. Check out their site at www.godhatesshrimp.com.