I really don’t like moving.

And I say that especially to all the smart-alecs who asked me, “Are you having fun yet?” as I was shlepping another box or desk or file cabinet or bookcase or chair or computer or other item up the stairs. No I was not having fun. Moving isn’t fun. Moving sucks.

Today I spent all the live-long day moving Brian’s office and my office from the Vickery Center (which is at the bottom of the hill, at the end of Vine Hill Road) to the Lower Terrace (which is behind the café, next to the Upper Terrace and the library, on the Bethany University campus). We didn’t choose to move, but since Bethany University is moving all their graduate studies programs into the Vickery Center (which used to be Vine Hill Office Park until Bethany bought it and renamed it) the Teacher Education Program decided they wanted our wing of the building, and for whatever insane reason they decided to move in during the middle of the semester. They’ve got 10 times as much stuff as we do, so it’s gonna suck to be them too. But today, it sucked to be us.

Twenty years ago, the Lower Terrace used to be a dorm. It was one of the buildings that was already there when Glad Tidings Bible Institute moved to Santa Cruz, bought the campus, and changed its name to Bethany Bible College. It looks it, too. The walls are rotting and flaking, and I hope the several layers of paint in the bathrooms aren’t hiding black mold. It stands a good chance of getting condemned one of these years, if the health department ever notices.

But on the upside, my office has a really nice view, and a deck right in front of it.

Lots of people from the church said they would help with the move. They didn’t. It was just Brian and me, pulling muscles and griping all the way. I expect I’ll see all of them tomorrow at the Kids Alive movie night, and they’ll either have convenient excuses or will have forgotten. But you know, it’s better that they didn’t bother to show up at all than do what they usually do:

1. Show up.
2. Spend 20 minutes determining who will do what.
3. Move three boxes, or fuss with curtains so they don’t have to lift anything heavy.
4. Put the boxes down.
5. Have a 50-minute conversation.
6. Move one more box, or stand and watch other people move one more box.
7. Go have dinner to celebrate all their hard work.
8. Send the bill for dinner to the church.

We’ll see how much of such shenanigans happen tomorrow at the Movie Night.

Stupid Internet Survey: What kind of coffee am I?

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

You Are an Irish Coffee. At your best, you are: wild, spontaneous, and outgoing. At your worst, you are: too extreme and reckless. You drink coffee when: you want to keep drinking booze. Your caffeine addiction level: low.

What Kind of Coffee Are You?
created with BlogThings.

Not entirely sure how I managed to score for Irish coffee. While I like Irish coffee creamer, I don’t drink alcohol and I’d hardly call myself reckless. But that’s just stupid internet quizzes for you.

Amusing cartoon of the day.

Reverend Fun, by Rowena/Bible Gateway.

Voting by mail.

And it’s about time, too. The election system in the United States is such a mess that, several years ago, when I was living in Nevada County, the county clerk was trying to save money on her budget by asking the public to not use the mail-in absentee ballots because they cost the county $7 apiece. I argued it would be cheaper in the long run to make all the ballots absentee. We wouldn’t have to pay for poll workers; we could vote whenever we wanted and have the ballots in by Election Day. Now all we have to do is require that all campaign contributors be anonymous, and we might have some real election reform in this country.

It appears Santa Cruz County might be going all absentee next election, which I approve of. It has yet to go through the Legislature, and we’ll see where that goes; there are too many idiots who are enamored of touch screens. I voted by touch screen last election; it was like selecting photos, not candidates. There’s just something more satisfying about putting a hole through a ballot, especially when you’re voting for the lesser of two evils.

Strap Saddam down, someone.

There’s a scene in C.S. Lewis’s novel Perelandra where the protagonist, and a man possessed by Satan, are fighting over the soul of a person. But when they’re not debating, they have to rest… except the demoniac doesn’t rest. Instead he pesters the hero by shouting his name, torturing frogs, or masturbating. Basically he’s acting like an obnoxious brat so he can wear down his opponent. This isn’t the genteel, civilized behavior we see in the devil in much of western literature, but anyone who’s had any experience being tempted is sorta aware, or should be, that the devil is no gentleman.

I don’t know if Saddam Hussein has ever read C.S. Lewis; the rumors are he was more of an Adolf Hitler fan. But it’s interesting to see his behavior at his trial and compare it with the book. Yes, he’s making himself out to be an ass. But he has nothing to lose; if he’s guilty (and he likely is) then he’s going to be executed. So the only tactic he has left is to make the court look bad—by acting like a demoniac and daring the court to stop him. Maybe they’ll at least conclude he’s insane and commute his sentence.

American courts wouldn’t put up with this crap for a minute; we’d have the defendant cuffed to the chair, muzzled, and taken to “the hole” whenever court was in recess until he cut it out. But this is a new court under a new government, and with the whole world watching, they’re likely afraid that any disciplinary behavior on their part might make them look too strict. It’s like a foster parent disciplining a child who was removed from a home where he was beaten; sometimes the foster parent doesn’t want to spank the child—even when it’s necessary—because things went too far before.

But I think in these cases people need to make a distinction. Cuffing and gagging a prisoner is cruel and unusual punishment if not merited. In this case it most certainly is merited; Saddam won’t behave. If he wants to look insane, strapping him up like Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs and wheeling him into court on a dolly ought to convey the right image.

Much ado about Mohammed.

Some Danish newspaper decides to let its cartoonists draw a few editorial cartoons about Mohammed as part of a special section, and suddenly the entire Muslim world is in an uproar. And it’s not because most of them aren’t funny (and weren’t meant to be) or even that they were (yet some don’t make any sense). It’s that it’s about Mohammed.

To Muslims, Mohammed is holy, and treating him any way other than reverently is blasphemy. And if your government is run by Muslims, blasphemy typically gets you the death penalty. We Americans really can’t relate all that well; we live in a country with a separation of church and state, so we can’t execute people for blasphemy.

I don’t know that I’d even say the editorial cartoons were blasphemous (except maybe that one with the bomb in the turban); they’re nothing compared to the editorial cartoons I’ve seen about Jesus. But in the U.S. we're free to do that sort of thing. Heck, Jesus is even a regular on South Park.

Trouble is, since in the U.S. it’s not a life-and-death matter (it’s more of an afterlife matter) most of us don’t really know what blasphemy is anymore. That’s why Christian stores actually sell Christian fish decals that are depicted having shark fins, or even eating Darwin fish. (And if you’re not sure why that’s blasphemous, stop and think about it for a minute.)

Most of the uproar is supposedly about blasphemy, but I think most of the problem is this: You’ve got a country where the people aren’t allowed freedom of speech, and the one time they’re allowed to say something publicly is in opposition to some non-religious westerners who don’t really understand what blasphemy is. This is the one time they’re allowed any freedom, so naturally they’re gonna go overboard with it… and burn some things, kill some people, and riot. That’s how oppressed people behave.

Compare this reaction to American Muslims, who may be likewise offended, but they’re behaving themselves.

Deep down, the oppressed Muslims would really rather burn and kill the despots who rule their lives. But they gotta take what they can when they can get it, and misdirect some anger before it eats them alive.

As someone who lives in a free country, I hear my God blasphemed all the time. Most of the time I don’t get bent out of shape about it because the blasphemers usually don’t know what they’re saying. There’s no point in chastising the ignorant. I’ll argue with those who do know what they’re saying, but I won’t kill them and set their houses on fire, because that’s not my place. God can defend himself much better than I can; and what’s better, he’ll be a lot more merciful than I would. Vengeance is his.

Amusing comic strip: Soul for a puppy.

The Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Gurewitch.