The DirecTV tech manual, Bookicide 3. All photos are 1500 x 996, click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
The DirecTV tech manual, Bookicide 3. All photos are 1500 x 996, click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
This time, a 1982 writing manual is condemned. I barely had to soak this one. A DirecTV manual is still soaking, it’s remarkably water resistant. You’d think they’d know they would come in for abuse or something. As soon as I recover from Fixatif fumes (kidding!), I’ll have fun with paint, always the best part.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
That was fun.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
‘Children of war’ book was presented in London on May 9 by the Gift of Life charity foundation. Source: Maxim Blinov / RIA Novosti
Children of war is a unique book that consists of the diaries written in the period 1941-1945 and chronicle the blockade of Leningrad, ghettos and concentration camps. They show the children’s view of life both in the occupied areas of Russia and behind the frontlines. More than half of the diaries are being published for the first time and are filled with terrifying and honest revelations speaking to the war experiences of millions of Soviet children.
[…]
The English edition was translated by Andrew Bromfield, who has previously produced acclaimed translations of Tolstoy, Bulgakov, the Strugatsky brothers and other Russian authors, with contributions from Rose France and Anthony Hippisley.
Children of war will soon be sent to the world’s top 100 universities and the top media organizations in almost 200 countries. Russian ambassadors have already presented it to the heads of states in their respective countries.
Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino. (Photo via Amazon.com Screen capture)
A Forest Hills Public Schools’ elementary parent in Ada Township, Michigan wants to ban the anti-bullying book “Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress” because he opposes boys wearing dresses.
In the story, Morris is laughed at by his classmates, but eventually, he helps them to understand that he likes wearing the dress because it’s the same color as a tiger, the sun and his mom’s hair. The story aims to teach children acceptance and stop bullying.
The parent who has such a big problem is a 35-year-old Army veteran and fundamentalist Christian, Lee Markham. […] “What the heck is going on?” Markham said. “This book is not just talking about accepting another viewpoint, it’s promoting another life.”
“We’re talking about one way to live life, but what about the other way, y’know, sorry to say it, the normal way what’s the benefit of actually adhering to societal norms,” Markham said.
Amid the many positive reviews on Amazon, there was another very angry [Christian] parent, most upset by the ‘don’t bully’ and ‘it’s okay if people are different’ message of the book:
I seldom write reviews, but this book was read to my child in 3RD GRADE!!! Parents were not notified, and some teacher thought it was good since there is ONE child whose parents let him wear skirts to school. Teaching boys to ACCEPT this is WRONG!!! THIS BOOK IS AGAINST GOD!!! You parents who let their children ‘express’ their gender inappropriately at school should know better!!! Boys are boys, and should behave and dress as such. This is not tolerance, and this is not about bullying. This is a scathing indictment of the breakdown of American morality. We are literally celebrating perversion!!! You can bet there will be a lawsuit at our school.
Markham went on about how awful the book is:
“His First Amendment right to his freedom of religion wasn’t addressed at all and instead another way of life is just put right in front of him. I just wonder who’s gonna correct all the damage that was done,” Markham reiterated.
Superintendent Dan Behm stated that the book will not be taken off the shelves, even though a parent is upset. Good for you, Superintendent, and thank you.
Author Jerry L. Martin’s book describes his journey from non-believer to believer to translator.
Imagine.
As if riding lightning, a bolt from the blue brings God’s voice to you one day.
Would you listen? Would you believe?
Jerry L. Martin did and does. Furthermore, he said that he collaborated with God on a book, “God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher” (Caladium, $24.95). A former agnostic, Martin journeyed from a status of non-believer to believer to translator within a transformation and result that brands as phenomenal.
“The first time God spoke to me,” Martin writes in the opening of the book, “I didn’t believe He existed.”
Martin was sitting with his future wife, Abigail Rosenthal, on a park bench in Washington, D.C. Suddenly, he heard a voice that she did not hear.
“I said, ‘who is this?’” Martin, a philosopher and former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, said during a recent interview by phone.
The voice replied casually, as if in conversation.
“‘I am God,’” Martin said. “The voice was as real and normal as talking to my wife on the telephone. She was writing in her journal. I told her about it. She didn’t say very much. The voice kept talking to me.”
[…]
Gradually and unsurprisingly, Martin’s life radically changed. Essentially, his professional life shifted from that of a philosopher to an author, a skeptic to a conduit for God.
“God wrote 80 percent of this book,” Martin said. “God said He wanted me to tell His story. God gave me the title.
So…”God”, who apparently is happy with that damn placeholder rather than its proper name, is as good as Leonard da Quirm* when it comes to naming things.
*Oddly enough, his creativity seems to stop when needed to give appealing names to his inventions: for example, for his machine capable of travelling submersed in a marine environment he came up with the name of “Going-Under-The-Water-Safely Device”. Source.
Aaaaaaand, a bonus facepalm:
Abraham Father of Atheism: The logical course of action smart atheists should take is now in a book. There’s a video at that link, but I don’t recommend watching it as it’s very poorly done and simply self serving. On to the website!
…but unfortunately, given the fact that scientists are only 99 percent sure that there is no Creator, shutting believers up with such an answer doesn’t seem to be an effective solution to me. At the end of the day, you are a one percent gambler….
…I agree with you that Muslims, Christians, and Jews should not be considered, by any means, to be useful people, because the world would simply be better without them. However, there is a story about a person called Abraham in their scriptures. His story, believe it or not, is of great significance to you as a non-believer because it can still provide you with the opportunity to justify your disbelief. Consequently the one percent probability is realized and the so-called Big Boss does exist, you will still be a winner.
I admire you; and highly appreciate your disbelief, but you should improve how you justify it in order to free yourself from the jaws of the pliers. In this book, I will teach you how to do that in a way that doesn’t result jeopardizing any afterlife, just in case the so-called Creator does exist.
There’s a wealth of material at the site, and from what I’ve skimmed, I’d be willing to bet this person wants to be the next Chopra. As for me, I can only take so much before the 3rd cup of tea. All I have to say right now is:
BOLLOCKS!
Larry Taunton, a Christian author in Birmingham, has recently made TV appearances on the right-leaning Fox News and on the left-leaning MSNBC.
Taunton’s new book on famous atheist Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011, has gotten rave reviews from prominent atheists, and prominent Christians.
I hadn’t even heard of this book, and I doubt it will go on my reading list. I don’t care for books that are going to make me want to toss them out a window.
Their friendship became so close they went on two long road trips together, with Hitchens reading aloud from the Gospel of John on one of them.
As Hitchens suffered and died from esophageal cancer, Taunton believes he was giving Christianity a kind of final review. Hitchens, who was baptized as a child in the Church of England but declared himself an atheist and burned his Bible at 15, never recanted his atheism.
But Taunton believes Hitchens gained a new appreciation for evangelical Christians who actually believe the Bible. “For the first time in his life, he was engaging evangelical Christians,” Taunton said. “He found them to be different from the veneer of Christianity in Britain. When he began debating these evangelicals, he began to like them.”
That’s news to me, but I didn’t exactly follow what Hitchens’ was or wasn’t doing. I don’t think it’s terribly surprising that you can end up liking people you also disagree with on some issues. That happens to most people, doesn’t it?
I don’t know if I can write anything ever again that gets universal praise from both the left and the right. This book is getting quite a reaction. The reception has been so kind, no nice. The atheist Michael Schermer loved the book.”
Yeah, okay, the book is a definite skip for me.
“I discovered Christopher is not defined by his atheism,” Taunton said. “Atheism is a negative and you can’t build a philosophy around a negative. Christopher was searching for a unifying system of thought. They’re accusing me of saying he converted. I make no such claim. It’s not my claim that Christopher converted, it’s that Christopher was contemplating conversion. I think I substantiate it in the book.”
[…]
In the end, Hitchens had created too big a reputation on his atheism to convert to Christianity, Taunton said.
“Christopher was in a difficult place,” Taunton said. “He’s a dying man. He asked me why I thought he didn’t convert. I said, ‘You’ve created a global reputation as an atheist, your fortune, your reputation is based on it. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to admit you were wrong. You created a prison for yourself.'”
I’m not saying he converted! Wait, I am too saying he converted! No, just that he wanted to convert! I’d think more of this “good Christian” if he wasn’t picking the bones of the dead to make a profit. Full Article Here.
This is Shermer’s brief review:
If you really want to get to know someone intimately, go on a multi-day cross-country road trip, share fine food and expensive spirits, and have open and honest conversations about the most important issues in life. And then engage them in public debate before thousands of people on those very topics. In this engrossing narrative about his friendship with the atheist activist Christopher Hitchens, the evangelical Christian Larry Taunton shows us a side of the man very few of us knew. Apparent contradictions dissolve before Taunton’s penetrating insight into the psychology of man fiercely loyal to his friends and passionately devoted to leading a life of integrity. This book should be read by every atheist and theist passionate about the truth, and by anyone who really wants to understand Hitch, one of the greatest minds and literary geniuses of our time.
Dame Vivienne Westood DBE RDI has just blown out her 75 candles, but she’s already back at work with the announcement of a new book. The “godmother of punk” is compiling her best journal entries in Get a Life: The Diaries of Vivienne Westwood.
Dame Viv is pictured on the cover wearing a portrait of transgender WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning, currently imprisoned for sharing classified information on the Iraq war.
“My diaries are about the things I care about,” Westwood said. “Not just fashion but art and writing, human rights, climate change, freedom. I call the diaries Get a Life as that’s how I feel: You’ve got to get involved, speak out and take action.”
Get a Life will be released on October 6, 2016. This will definitely be on my stack of fall books, and I’m looking forward to it. The 75 candles link is NSFW.
A brief round up of the amazingly stupid and awful…
Rally to keep the Confederate flag flying (Mashable/Twitter)
Mississippi governor Phil Bryant recently proclaimed April to be Confederate Heritage Month , adding an official flourish to a longstanding tradition in his state and several others. April, he wrote in the proclamation, is “the month in which the Confederate States began and ended a four-year struggle”.
Bryant’s proclamation does not mention the central cause of the struggle – slavery – but instead announces the month as a chance to “gain insight from our mistakes and successes” and to “earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us”. It also sets aside 25 April as “Confederate Memorial Day”.
Beata Szydło supports the motion to ban abortion. Photograph: East News/REX/Shutterstock
The Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, said she backs moves towards a total ban on abortion, in a sign the nationalist government may be set to turn its attention to the nuclear family.
A campaign against abortion is due to be launched this Sunday in the country’s Roman Catholic churches. Priests have been asked to read out a letter from the bishops’ conference calling for Poland’s existing, limited abortion rights to be scrapped.
I recently read Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine, and I’ll have more to say about it in a bit (I loved it). Now, I want to mention one thing that delighted me absolutely – the book is set a wee bit in the future, in 2025. I was downright grateful for that. As to why that was so delightful, it leads to rant about the love affair too many authors have with the Victorian era, whether they can honestly say their book is steampunk or not. And even if a book is steampunk, or has steampunk elements, that doesn’t mean it must be trapped in Victorian times. I’ve now read enough books set in Victorian London that it’s time to say Goodbye, Victoria. I just can’t take any more. Not only has Victorian London become a mostly snore-worthy bore, with some authors, it’s much worse than that.
