Sequiturs

You are a benign incorporeal spirit roaming the Earth in search of opportunities for harmless mischief. What do you do?

You haunt the Keibler Forest in the eerie, lonely dead of night. Calling on your mystical powers, you replace all of the ozone in the local boundary-layer atmosphere with neon and krypton. You know from your atmospheric chemistry course that a diurnal cycle of N02 and ozone photolysis renders ozone basically inert at night in unpolluted areas, so this will not harm the local ecology. However, you hope that if the Keibler Elves use neon lighting to make cookies and merriment during the evening, or apply active electrodes to the Pillsbury Dough Boy in an effort to get his secret recipes, the air around them will explode with colors, and they’ll finally be able to see you silhouetted against the sky. They’ll probably interpret you as a swamp gas anomaly or the Ghost of Christmas Past, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll finally have some interaction with another sentient being, however fleeting. It’ll be even better than that time Lazarus dipped his little finger in a stream of Paradise and set a drop of water on your tongue!

Alas, despite your silent entreaties, the Elves use nothing but candles for lighting. How odd for creatures that live in trees! Maybe they aren’t so sentient after all. As dawn approaches you feel opportunity slipping away, and, though you are mildly amused at the antics of the Elves, the despair you feel at the thought of continued loneliness is tempered only by anguish and a rising bloodlust, which is in turn tempered only by the basic gentleness of your spirit, the descending torpor of despair and anguish, and mild amusement at the eternal homeostasis implied by this inner equilibrium of your emotional state.

Your reverie shatters under the glare of a bright light in the distance. Lightning! A thunderstorm approaches on a swift, cool breeze from the east! A full moon reflects off the boldly ascending cloud tops, which in turn reflect off the Keibler pool, and a wolf howls in the distance. Your soul is comforted. While the Elves have long since hit the hay (they punch piles of hay right before bed), a night so beautiful could never be regarded as a total loss.

Suddenly, the air sizzles with energy. Lightning fills the forest with pulses electric, sonic and photonic. The Krypton and Neon are set aglow, and you are gratified and mortified by what you see. Thousands of creatures fluoresce for a thousandth of a millisecond as the shadows of the moon and the morning star reassert themselves—thousands of creatures in the throes of death. With their wilting plumes of radiant energy and tendrils drooping toward the earth, they look not at all like the vibrant airborne jellyfish they must have resembled a moment earlier.

Every two tendrils meet in a crude imitation of hands—these creatures have arms but no elbows, fingers but no palms. They are able to grasp but not to hold, to gesture but not to wave. They gesture toward you now, and by some strange spiritual resonance they communicate more to you in an instant than I could write in a thousand years. They call themselves the Nightglow. They tell of their race’s emergence each dusk from clandestine daytime hibernation. They tell of the ages of microseconds they endure in their accelerated perception of time before the light of consciousness and memory awakens as the light of twilight fades. They tell of wars and rumors of wars, of loud struggles and silent joys, of confusion and deceit, wisdom and clarity, of their cultural development, their philosophy, and the culmination of each of these in a destiny they now welcome with open metaphorical arms. They tell of their physical vulnerability to photons, their fearful anticipation of the Daybreak they knew must come, and their acceptance and eventual embrace of this fate. They thank you for an early release from this life. Their spirits will now ascend through the cloud tops into the heavens, and their bodies, not truly dying after all, will fall to earth only to reemerge as their progeny in a few billion microseconds, when night falls again.

It is as though Lazarus had emptied a waterfall onto your tongue. Waterfalls either are or are not; they are never empty. So it is with your time among the Nightglow. You accompany them to the brink of space, but you speak no farewell. Suddenly they are gone, and you look down upon a world with which you are just as suddenly at peace, as you look forward to your next night of harmless mischief.

I have found lately that I need the peace that passes understanding, because my understanding gives me no peace. Christianity is no mere worldview.  Being in good standing with God matters infinitely more than grasping some esoteric doctrine.

…beats sibling rivalry! My brother Isaac has a very cool website devoted to online gaming tutorials and hacks, links, and whatever else entertains him. He also has an extensive and entertaining list of funny thoughts (that link is different). Here’s a sample.

“Do pyromaniacs wear blazers?”

“If you don’t pay your exorcist, do you get repossessed?”

“Can someone give up lent for lent?”

“How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?”

He’s 15 years old, and he’s been compiling that list since before I moved away from home five years ago. He’s a really cool guy.

This is an ok bit of satire I guess, but nothing to write home about. What’s really fun is reading it while listening to Romans 3 on CD. Here are some of the twisted sentences that might run through your head:

“You must accept my challenge, or be dishonored. I am using a human argument. Do not insult me by suggesting that we settle this matter with talk. If that were so, how could God judge the world?”

“Why not say, as we are being slanderously reported as saying, and as some claim that we say, ‘You may know little about knitting, but your knowledge of weapons is formidable.’ The katana has a history dating back to the Samurai. Their condemnation is deserved.”

“What will it be, then? Rapiers? Crossbows? Bo staffs? They have together become worthless. Their throats are open graves and their feet are swift to shed blood. Every time I fashion a scarf, I will imagine using it to hang you by the tallest tree in Harpville. As I wield the needle to fashion a new garment, so will I wield my blade to tear your flesh. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. I assure you, I will not give you the opportunity to die by your own hand. Rather, you will die by mine, while you are still uncircumcised.”

God, thank you for having a sense of humor. I don’t mean this to be disrespectful, but it made me laugh when I thought of it.

Here’s a creepy little game a friend and I conjured up last year when we were bored for a few hours. Note to world: it’s best to keep us busy.

Dear friends, comrades and other redundant types of associates:

I am writing today to inform you of a revolutionary entertainment product coming soon to a community near or far away from you. Our product is both life-altering and life-shortening, and I want to encourage you to get in on the ground floor before anything messy is ground into it. Our product is a new sport, and that sport is rollerpuppy.

For centuries on end our ancestors have enjoyed the venerable sports of rollerblading and dogsledding. Like you they may well have wondered, is there some way to combine these two sports in a shining monument to reckless sport combining? And will it involve shooting puppies with tranquilizers? Those are terrible questions, but unfortunately our ancestors passed away before they could be smacked for allegedly asking them. Time was on our side, however, and those centuries on end have finally rolled over in symbolic endorsement of rolling and, by extension, rollerpuppy.

Here is how rollerpuppy works:

Each competing team is comprised of two contestants, fifteen sleeping puppies, one United Nations animal rights observer, a wheelbarrow, one pair of roller skates, and two hypodermic needle guns filled with set amounts of adrenaline and sedatives respectively. The puppies, still sleeping, are harnessed to rollerscates on the feet of the first player in such a way that they run along evenly spaced radial lines from the back of the wheelbarrow. The second player sits in the wheelbarrow with needle guns ready. Before the game begins, in a ceremonial gesture of mutual goodwill, the two teams join together to put the animal rights observer to sleep while singing the national anthem. With so many sedatives lying around, it seems only natural to induce sleep with a multitude of very tiny rubber mallets.

The two teams will race a predetermined distance over some formidable terrain with lots of twists and turns. To begin the race, each team’s wheelbarrowman should fire one needle of adrenaline into each puppy. This will cause the puppies to run, pulling forward the rollerskater, who will in turn push the wheelbarrow. In this way the team can move forward in a straight line. To turn, it will be necessary to either slow down or speed up the puppies on one side or the other of the formation. For example, to turn right, the wheelbarrowman can either fire sedatives into the puppies on the left, causing them to slow down, or adrenaline into the puppies on the right, causing them to run more swiftly. To stop turning he will have to use a proportionate amount of sedative or adrenaline on the other side. The wheelbarrowman must exercise care to avoid over-sedating any of the puppies, which could cause them to be crushed under the wheelbarrow. He must be equally careful not to overdo the stimulants, lest the puppy suffer a heart attack and become deadweight.

In addition to destruction and anguish, rollerpuppy is a game of pain and bloodshed. But there’s more to it than just misery and mayhem; there is also lifelong heartbreak and remorse. In particular, there is the remorse you’ll feel after employing any of the many cunning tactics available to the rollerpuppyer. Surely you would regret trying to sedate puppies on opposing teams to gain an unfair advantage. But you must always be on the lookout for traps laid by an opponent trying to seize your regret for himself. Such is the timeless strategy of rollerpuppy.

As many teams as like may compete simultaneously. They say the more the merrier, and you’ll need plenty of merriment to make incarceration seem worth it. Please join me by promoting rollerpuppy in your community. It may not be a noble cause, but it is a fake one.

A thorough investigation of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Titanic and the ensuing coverup, from the nimble but crass mind that gave us The Best Page In The Universe.

NASA’s Opportunity rover has successfully descended into Victoria Crater on Mars. That’s good news; there were serious worries about whether the rover, already well out of warranty, would survive this process.

When I mention to people that I was homeschooled, they usually ask whether I liked it and whether I would consider homeschooling my own children. I tell them that I liked it a lot and would strongly consider it, although every family is different and lives in a different situation. Frequently, in response, the first thing I hear is: “doesn’t homeschooling stunt a kid’s social development?”

I usually manage not to laugh too loud. Yes, Mr. Tact, it does. As a product of homeschooling, I’m doomed to an emotionally empty life of stumbling from faux pas to awkward silence and back again endlessly. Why, just this morning I accidentally implied that a new acquaintance was socially stunted due to a bad upbringing. Can you imagine how embarrassing it is to let such words slip across one’s tongue? Sticks and stones are nothing next to how my own words can hurt me. If only I’d been sent to a public school like yours, I’d have had someone to interact with when I was young besides my parents, my siblings, my neighbors, my church, the kids on my baseball and swimming teams, books, movies, Paul Harvey, television, museums, the internet, town fairs, science fairs, professional storytellers hired by the local homeschooler’s association, and the occasional ASL interpretor who used to travel the country with my Dad.

Yep, I think even one recess bully might have done the trick and spared me all this misery.

Just think, I could have been a real boy…

Because the world deserves the spectacle of the hubris of an open thread by a blogger with two readers! What do you think of the candidates? Here are a few uncoordinated thoughts on the Republicans and one Democrat whom I like.

At the moment my favorite person in the race is Mike Huckabee. Huckabee’s approach to the immigration issue is exactly right, and reveals the Christian heart with which he looks at issues. In one of the debates he said: “We ought to have sealed borders. But I want to be clear: If someone is looking for a president who is going to have a mean spirit toward other human beings, I’m not their guy. I’ll fix the borders, I’ll secure them, but what I won’t do is to do it because I’m angry at them for wanting to come here for the same reason that the rest of us love America.” He’s also very strong on abortion: “Some people are pro-life because they want to succeed in politics. I got into politics because I’m pro-life.” I would enthusiastically support the articulate former pastor if he were running for governor or senator, but I’m not sure he’s qualified to take charge of foreign policy. A President needs to bring more to the table when talking about Iraq then vague generalities about honor.

I think Ron Paul’s newfound prominence is refreshing, but even though going into Iraq may have been a mistake, I’m not ready to support a hasty withdrawal. Still, it’s nice to hear a Republican mention the idea of closing down, say, the Department of Education, by way of something other than apologizing for having previously supported the idea. Paul is probably the one guy you can count on to reduce the size of government, and that’s not nothing. But his unholy alliance with the Netroots Left on foreign policy is a problem for me.

Rudy Giuliani has a fine track record as a manager, and I’d be thrilled to see him in the next Cabinet, maybe as the guy in charge of fixing the Department of Homeland Security, actually securing the border with Mexico, or dismantling the IRS. But a President who supports gay marriage and abortion isn’t a pill I’m ready to swallow just yet.

John McCain is great, except that doesn’t believe in the First Amendment. That’s kind of a big exception.

I like Joe Biden’s political incorrectness and passionate advocacy for Darfur. In particular, I like his moral clarity on the issue: “They have forfeited their sovereignty by committing genocide.” Compare and contrast with the narcissism of the other Democratic candidates worrying about whether we have enough “moral authority” to intervene. As if Darfur had anything to do with Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib! Biden’s response is right on. He says, “the reason we have no moral authority is that we’re not acting…by the time all these guys talk, 50,000 more people are going to be dead! We have the capacity to shut down the Janjaweed, that’s our moral authority.” Biden is far and away the best of the Democratic candidates, and he’s another guy I’d like to see in the Cabinet. But he’s pro-abortion, which would make it really hard for me to vote for him.

Fred Thompson sure does have a lot of supporters for a guy who hasn’t articulated any specific policies yet. I like the way he’s running his campaign, staying away from the legacy-media filter and organizing people directly through the internet, but at some point he needs to actually say something about an issue.

Mitt Romney is the Republican John Kerry, and I’m frankly disheartened that his campaign has as much support as it does. If you believe for a second that he is either honest or pro-life, this should change your mind. That clip is Romney in a nutshell: a well-spoken, hair-splitting politician who offers consummate semantic skills but no semantic content. Have you ever heard him tell you convincingly why he thinks something? At least Giuliani is honest enough to tell you where he stands.

Anyway, I’m still up in the air right now. There are a lot of people out there saying good things, but each of them seems to have a serious flaw. What do you think?

Update: Somehow I managed not to mention Duncan Hunter in my original post. He’s another serious candidate from whom I would like to hear more. As a conservative congressman from California who is pro-life, supports school choice and the fair tax, and comes from a military family, he has a lot going for him. The front page of his website has a video clip of his announcement, so I’ll let him speak for himself.

Kent Heitholt was beaten and strangled to death in Columbia, MO, on November 1, 2001. For three years, the murder remained unsolved. In March 2004, the police finally received a lead. A young man named Chuck Erickson turned himself in to police, saying he thought he may have been involved. He told police that he had recently dreamed that he and a friend, Ryan Ferguson, had committed the murder. He was unable to provide any specific information about the murder, did not know where the crime scene was, and repeatedly said that he may have dreamed up the whole thing.

Police, apparently desperate to solve the case, painstakingly furnished Erickson with the details he would need to convince a jury, although of course anyone present at the crime should already know these details. The astonishing video of Erickson’s interrogation reveals that the boy is far too confused to prove anyone’s guilt, and features police threatening him to get him to testify against Ferguson. The most striking part of the video comes when the interrogator, berating Erickson for his uncertainty, says to him, “your hind-end is what’s on this chopping block…what I want to hear is exactly what Ryan told you, because that’s the only thing that is gonna keep you in a position where you’re not gonna be the only individual out here responsible for what happened to Kent. I can’t be any more clear than that.”

No, of course you can’t be any more clear than that, because it would result in a mistrial. It is clear that the police handed Erickson testimony that he didn’t remember, and scared him into offering it at trial. If you think I’m overreacting here, watch the video. It could hardly be clearer.

Ferguson, a Columbia, MO, native and friend of friends of mine, was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He adamantly maintains his innocence, and I think he’s telling the truth.