A recent election-season piece by David Mamet, "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal,'" caught my eye. Usually I think Mamet's always worth a read.

It also sent me looking for other Mamet stuff, and I landed on an old Salon intervew (1997), from which any number of quotes might be lifted. Since Occasional Publications has been living up to its name lately, I'll take this one on the internet. The final rant is perfect.

Somewhere, you wrote about the mass media, including the computer industry, conspiring to pervert our need for community. That the dream of having all this information at our fingertips to make us godlike is really doing the opposite and making us forget our humanity. Could you elaborate on that?

It's not really that they're conspiring to, but they might as well be. If you sit down in front of the television with 700 channels, there's probably something on those channels that's going to interest you. It's a very good way to get stupid very quickly.

There's nothing you get from television? The information is just a delusion?

I absolutely think so. If there's any information, it's purely accidental. Furthermore, I don't think there is any information to be gotten from television. I think it's an illusion. It's an interesting narcotic.

Even documentaries or historical programs?

No, it's television.

What about the Internet and the promise of all this information becoming available?

I don't know anything about it, but I'm sure it's worse.

Last week The Nation posted an intriguing piece on politics and the new wave of American evangelicalism. Read it all...

I'm working on a new web-based project, which has siphoned off most of the small reserve of energy I had for this blog. Until I unveil the new project, I can share this amusing widget:

Robert Krause, the chef for whom I once worked, and his wife, Molly, were listed in the latest issue of Food & Wine among 100 food "bests" for 2008. As the Lawrence, KS paper explains, the Krause operation earned a no. 11 spot on "tastes to try in 2008" list. Part of the F&W write-up is online, here.

You can read more about their work here, here and here (with photos), and see especially this photo-set on Flickr and their homepage, krausedining.com.

Got babies on the brain, and US politics? Even if not, I (we) enjoyed Slate's latest slide show, The Baby Primary.

(By the way, happy birthday, mom.)

Tags: Humor

I confess I don't know what category to put this in. Late last month the NYT ran a piece on the New St Andrews, the one in Moscow, Idaho. As the piece explains:

Doug Wilson, 54, the pastor who spearheaded New St. Andrews’ founding, puts the college’s purpose simply: “We are trying to save civilization.”

All I can say to that is, wow. What I want to know is, Why St Andrews?

The school has adopted trappings of Oxford and Cambridge: professors are called “fellows,” and students dress in academic gowns for thesis defenses and public final exams. Proudly Anglophile, faculty members lead a summer tour of English castles and abbeys. C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton are ubiquitous on class reading lists — revered for their godly wit and their fondness for fine drink. N.S.A.’s campus is proudly wet, in deliberate contrast to the average fundamentalist Bible college.

Is it because students here, at the old St Andrews, sometimes still wear gowns? (It's certainly not because most here read Thomas, or in Latin.) Or because this St Andrews is sufficiently remote that a comparison doesn't strain all credulity?

Molly Worthen, who is evidently writing a book about evangelical intellectual life and who authored the NYT piece, is a good writer. Somebody remind me to take a look at her book when it comes out.

Tags: St Andrews

There's a conference taking place here in St Andrews over the first part of next week, hosted by ITIA (Institute for Theology, Imagination & the Arts).

It's called The Offence of Beauty: What can a theological perspective on beauty offer to the arts today? Not exactly my area, but I'm in to both offence and beauty, and some of the sessions look pretty good. I'll go along if I can swing it, and you should too if you're in the area. (Sorry that you're not, DW, as I'm sure you'd strike up at least three energizing conversations.) Keynote speakers will be:

Trevor Hart – 'Ugly as Sin? Beauty, Holiness and the Crucified'

Nicholas Wolterstorff – 'The Troubled Relationship of Art with Beauty'

Carol Harrison – 'Kind of Blue: Beauty and Broken Images'

Patrick Sherry – 'The Holy Spirit and Beauty'

Bernard Beatty – 'Beauty and the Opening of Distance: Defending the
Two-Dimensional'

Robert Jenson – 'Deus Est Ipsa Pulchritudo'

Inside scoop: One postgrad here giving a short paper may not make it because his wife might be in labor at this very moment.

Tags: St Andrews

The course in Paris is over (sigh), and we're back in St Andrews again. I've been working on French on my own a little every day this week. Hopefully our memories and photos will motivate the practice for some while.

The French say that culture is like jam: the less you have, the thinner you spread it. Scotland has some culture (more than Kansas at least) but Paris is unbeatable in that regard. We've come back determined to find as much as we can. For example, food markets don't compare (I balked when I saw the word boulangerie today) but we're trying out Bellfield Organic Nursery, which we've heard recommended. As for the arts, again no comparison, but the Pittenweem Arts Festival is this weekend, and the Fringe Festival lasts all month.

As for the beach, why stay along the Seine (better photo here)? Most Parisians don't. After all, we have the East Sands just outside our door, and the West Sands across town.

Are we psyching ourselves up? Well, in view of a last year to write up, and of another Scottish winter, and of the end of Harry Potter (I keep trying to feel superior to it, but it's great), yes. What other choice do we have?

Spreading it thin, but with relish,
DnA

Tags: Personal

Adriel and I are off to Paris to learn French for a month, studying at the ILCF - CUE (in English here). We expect a few visitors already, so if you're in the area give a shout. We'll be on email (but not on the blog!).

I do plan to make it to Vienna for the canon/Kanon session, and perhaps to attend a special session in honor of Brevard Childs, which may or may not happen on Wednesday morning.

I'm looking forward to unplugging myself from my workstation. Further updates to this site can be anticipated in August, though.

Tags: Personal

Time for another post. I seem to be averaging about one a month. But friends and relatives, take courage... it's because I'm making headway on my thesis.

I heard a great spot this week on Slate's daily pod-cast, on why the US should finally move to $1 coins, and why it's unlikely work unless the treasury stops minting greenbacks. To anyone who's lived in a country that uses coins for the equivalent denomination, it's perfectly obvious why the switch should be made. Read the story for a financial argument, or listen to it.

Until next month...

The word "lassitude" was on the brain as I walked to work today. I looked it up in the OED to check I had the right nuance. Sure enough: "a flagging of the bodily or mental powers; indifference to exertion."

Then, for some reason, I checked to see if the domain was available. Here's the irony part. Lassitude.org has been snatched up by one of those indifferent companies that offers web locations for a markup and fills the space meanwhile with a search page and random links. The domain name plus motto reads:

Tags: Humor

Just got back in the UK after some weeks (largely internet free) with family in the US. Took some photos which I'll try to post sooner rather than later.

Among other highlights, I had dinner with my chef friend Robert Krause and his family (I worked for him part of the time I lived in Topeka).

Tags: Personal

Some of you are no doubt already aware of David Plotz, a writer for Slate Magazine, who is currently Blogging the Bible (perhaps a take-off from the book Walking the Bible?). In his own words, he is "a proud Jew, but never a terribly observant one." And since mid-May, he's been blogging about reading the Bible, a book he's picking up for the first time in his adult life.

The results are occasionally entertaining. Of Joseph's rule in Egypt, which is otherwise inspiring, he writes:

Didn't someone write a book on the biblical roots of capitalism and free enterprise? How did he handle this episode? Our hero Joseph abolishes private property, turns freeholders into serfs, and transforms a decentralized farm economy into a command-economy dictatorship. This is bad economics and worse public policy. This is China, 1949. Joseph is Chairman Mao. (And, to speculate a little bit, perhaps this centralized dictatorship established by Joseph is what ultimately led to the Israelites enslavement in Egypt. Once you create a voracious state apparatus, it must be fed. Is it a surprise that slavery became part of its diet? In a less totalitarian state, perhaps slavery wouldn't have been as necessary or as feasible...)

I'm less engaged when he writes about the 10 Plagues in a post out today. Maybe it's just because I hear all sorts of clichéd answers jumping up meed to his clichéd questions. They're honest questions, and important at some level, but not at this level: they seem out of place on a zine with this kind of stature. Kind of makes me circumspect about the whole blogging enterprise.

Tags: Blogging

Some of you may remember my writing about the Rapture Index on RaptureReady.com in February. (If you missed it, see here.) Well, my most faithful reader prompted me to check whether today's date affected the index at all, and sure enough, the index is up one point.

You have to appreciate some of the subtlety here. It isn't the date itself that raises the index. Rather, we have this explanation:

35 Date Settings
The occurrence of the 06/06/06 date has increased interest in numerical date speculation.

Not even the nuances of a textual variant would bring us back down a point. Harm's already been done. Because people out there aren't taking Jesus seriously, who said that not even he knows the day or time, only the Father.

Obviously, as in all matters eschatological, you shouldn't just take my word for it. Read the report on the signs of the times for yourself.

I wish I could say not to worry because we're actually down a point from where we were last time I checked, at 157 instead of 158. However, both numbers are still in the highest range in the "prophetic speedometer." A score up to 145 means "heavy prophetic activity," but a score beyond 145, where I suppose we've been all year, situates us in the dangerous "fasten your seat belts" zone.

I was going to say that you could read their Nearing Midnight blog for more details on 06/06/06. You still can, but actually the first part of yesterday's post (try here if the link won't work), on "The Perils of Multiculturalism," is more interesting to my mind. Here's my favorite paragraph:

Multiculturalism is the opposite of nationalism; it highlights the differences between people while ignoring the similarities. Multiculturalism is not about ethnic, racial, or religious diversity -- that which once made America into a "melting pot" of nations. Under the influence of liberal thinking, America came to consist of many different "pots" of cultures, each separate from the others.

Thus, Todd aphorizes, "There is nothing multicultural about multiculturalism."

Come to think of it, you may also wish to read the signs of the times for yourself, too.

Tags: Humor

Today is my dad's birthday. We both wish he could have been to the IWER event Friday, where I would have raised a glass to him. As a poor substitute, I'll quote some verse by Robert Burns he put me on to recently.

There's nane that's blest of human kind,
But the cheerful and the gay, man,
Fal, la, la, (&c.)

HERE'S a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.

Happy Birthday, Fuller.

Tags: Personal

You've got to watch what you blog about. I was warned recently about admitting that I've seen movies like Eyes Wide Shut, depending on where I hope to get a job later. Fair enough. But this one caught me by complete surprise.

A recent first-time visitor to this blog, from Saudi Arabia (!), got here by a Yahoo search for "lolita childs."

Naturally, this site, for all it talks about Childs, came near the top of the list (I mentioned reading Nabokov's book a few weeks back). If the man comes back looking, tell him I've never heard of her.

On a related note, Phil put me on to a recent news item that is similarly "by turns disturbing, sad, and hilarious." Free train travel anyone? Make sure to read to the end.

Finally, a word about my choice to designate all this as humor. I grant that it is dark humor at best, probably closer to horror. But as a genre horror has often flirted with comedy (I must credit Phil again for reminding me). If you think there's nothing even remotely comic about these very real episodes, then I predict you also did not at all enjoy Colbert's presentation at the White House correspondents' dinner.

If any of this rankles you, I dare you to post the first comment in ages.

Tags: Humor

If you haven't made up your mind yet about Stephen Colbert's stunt in DC, this piece by Troy of Slate Magazine may help you see it as "good political satire." You can even listen to the author read it to you if you like.

If you didn't know Colbert before, you may appreciate his humor better in its usual context. A favorite clip of mine on YouTube pertains to my home state.

Tags: Humor

Add this to your list of books that will never be written: Nabokov's Lolita and The Holiness Code: An Intertextual Study of a "Parody of Incest" and Leviticus18.

I had to hole up last week in our humble flat after I contracted an acute case of something-or-another. I managed to do a little work, but eventually I gave myself permission to pick up a novel instead of John Barton. Lolita turns out to be a good book to read when afflicted.

It is my first literary read since we moved to Scotland almost two years ago. I did pick up Ulysses last summer when we went to Dublin but failed to make it any further than the last time I tried to read it. And Adriel and I read the 6th Harry Potter to each other when it came out. But apart from that, Lolita was the first. The experience makes me nostalgic for my undergraduate days as a lit major.

Martin Amis put me on to the book. See an excerpt from the review I read in his The War Against Cliché (which I also recommended). Let his insights and well-chosen quotations stand in for what could have been a long-winded, less reflective post from me. I would only add one quote from the foreward:

"No doubt, [HH] is horrible, his is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous…"

Amis is the best guide, but there's a decent Wikipedia article (the Slate article it links is disappointing).

Tags: Literature

I was ill last week and haven't even really looked at email for some time (sorry friends, Hebrews conference types—you'll hear from me soon now). I'm plowing through well over a hundred today. But I have got a few new posts in mind, which I'll permit myself to write periodically for diversions.

Tags: Personal

There's a bit of St Andrews lore behind the anual May dip, where thousands of crazed (not always drunk) students jump into the North Sea at 5 AM. They say that if you step on the stones marking the place were martyr Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake, you will not graduate.


One can fairly easily step on these stones if walking along North Street. Fortunately it is possible to make expiation on the first of May. All you have to do is jump into the North Sea at dawn.

That's the story anyway. People seem to go along for other reasons, though. Several friends took the plunge this year (photos posted here and here). For myself, I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed.

For the reflections of somebody who was actually there this year, see Meg's blog.

Tags: Humor, St Andrews

A colleague has posted photos from the annual St Mary's BBQ and Boules tournament. Seemingly the postgrads through quite a wrench (spanner) into the works by actually coming this year. The undergrads who kindly put on the event were seen running to Tesco for more food, and the tournament itself needed not just a new bracket, but a long round of prelims to eliminate players.

Unless you're from St Mary's you'll probably not recognize anybody in the pictures. I'm only in one, I think, which is fine with me. But you may be able to pick out Ian Bradley or Jim Davila or Mark Elliott. The faculty team beat both the undergrads and the postgrads. I think it's because they had more robes. The undergrads, being more experienced, knew this and planned for it. They lost probably because only half the team remembered to wear them.

See the photos here.

Tags: Personal, St Andrews

The haggis has by now all but disappeared from view. Three trips to the NHS Dental Access center later, my opened root canal has still not been properly filled. Last time, the dentist was due for a lunch break, and so told me to come back in a week so somebody else could finish the job. Today, just over a week later, I was sent away again because the next appointment had arrived, even though this dentist said it would only take her another 15 minutes to finish up. I'm now at the bottom of a two week waiting list.

I was actually composing this post while in the dental chair, but whatever clever things I was going to say about what was playing on the radio (the Cure, then the Police, at which point the dentist started singing along), or about three women with wildly different accents wrestling my mouth to put a stubborn rubber dam in place, have been eclipsed by my frustration at the whole process. In short, I'm a bit less impressed with the NHS than I was in part one.

On the drive back to St Andrews, I tried to talk myself back into an appreciation of all the government does. I tuned in to Radio 4, but still felt bitter. I turned my thoughts to the roads, but then almost immediately queued up for road works.

Hopefully the next trip will be the last. If not, will a temporary filling last the year and a half until I can return to my uncle's practice in Oregon?

Tags: Personal

I can’t say for certain that the haggis that did the tooth in, but even if it did not kill the tooth in the first instance, it acted as an accessary at the least. I am content to pin the whole blame on it because in murder cases one needs a culprit, and because a haggis (mine was an instantiation of the general rule) shows no remorse.

About a month back, my Roundel-mate Ted brought back a haggis and chips for my lunch because a nearby chip shop was offering the supper for the special price of £2. Jokes were made about the appearance of the haggis, particularly as another office-mate, who has the same has the emotional hang-ups with the food as I have with root canals, had never seen one up close before. Decency prevents my spelling out the nature of the comments in a public forum.

I ate ceremoniously at first, but by the time I had four bites to go nobody was watching anymore. So nobody saw me wince in pain as I bit down hard into a stray bit of bone. I discretely binned what remained of lunch.

The tooth was sore for the next few days, but seemed to improve by the next week. After another week, however, the soreness still had not gone away completely, and I began to obsessively tongue the back of the lateral incisor that was giving me trouble. By last Sunday, I knew in detail every irregularity of its surface.

On Monday I bought a coffee on the way to work. After one sip, I gave it away to a friend. I spent the morning fretting about the what nightmare getting dental care in the UK might turn out to be (local dentists stopped taking university students as patients this year), wondering irrationally if it could wait to the next trip home (in November!).

I went home for lunch and called the dental emergency hotline, then drove out the next day to small village, about 40 minutes out. It would be uncharitable to describe in any detail the office as it appeared to me. Suffice it to say that as I climbed into the avocado green examining chair I felt like I was in one of those Rockwell paintings of scared kids. The doctor put some waxy stuff on the ailing tooth and told me to wait a few days to see if it got worse. I would have asked for an X-Ray except I there wasn’t one. I received a small bill of £9.87.

I took courage at having paid a professional to tell me I have beautiful teeth, but by Saturday (last night) I was in the throws of the worst toothache imaginable. Phil came over to watch A Clockwork Orange, and I had to pause the movie twice to walk off the pain. After he left I watched The Life of Brian and didn’t laugh. When I realized there was no getting to sleep, I watched to the bonus material, but turned it off when I realized I was staring obsessively at the teeth of each Pythons as he got interviewed in turn.

At three I called dental hotline, then lay in bed & sweating cursing until morning. I drove over 5 inches of new snow to Kirkcaldy—the 20 mile drive took over an hour, but by then I was already becoming philosophical about my brush with suffering—and had a positive encounter with a friendly receptionist who said I was daft for coming out in such weather. She turned out to be the dentist as well, and I’ve felt great ever since she opened the abscessed tooth for draining. My bill came to £6.56. (Thank you NHS.)

Estimating £25 for the petrol, the experience has cost £44, including the haggis. I’m to have root canal therapy later in the week, so I expect the final bill will exceed £50. Not bad, from one perspective, but quite a nice bottle of single malt from another.

Tags: Personal

When Adriel leaves me at home by myself, as she has done this week to attend a friend's wedding, I adopt the lifestyle of an indulgent bachelor.

Instead of squeezing in a run before breakfast, I sleep straight through to mid-morning. Instead of going in to the office, I read on the sofa in my underwear until I'm hungry, at which point I fry an egg in the pan that's still sitting on the stove from the day before.

Eventually I shower and get dressed (perhaps even going for a jog first, though only if I feel like it) and make my way to the library or the Roundel. After all, there are other enticements for going out.

For example, I usually buy an interesting bottle of whisky to keep me company at home (often I sip some while reading in my shorts). This time I got a signatory cask strength bottling of Glen Garioch 1988, aged 16 years. It is less exciting than other cask strength whiskies I've tasted recently, but it is still turning out to be a good companion.

I also make sure to always have a pipe with me when out of doors. Normally I bring it out for special occasions, but when I'm in indulgent bachelor mode just making it out the front door before dinner seems reason enough to light up.

There's one other recurring pattern I'll mention: when Adriel leaves, I major in a film director she's not likely to go for. We watch Tarkovsky films together—she got me started on him in fact—so it's not that she doesn't go for good films that can be hard to watch. But it would be hard to both find time to watch several Coen brother films back to back, and still harder to work through Bresson's career in two consecutive evenings. (Both have been my diet on past occasions.)

She wouldn't go for David Lynch for somewhat different reasons, I guess. My director this time may appear to fall in this class, though I've found him more, uh, edifying, if that's the word. This week it's been Stanley Kubrick.

Dr. Strangelove is an amazingly easy film to watch for something filmed in 1964, thanks largely to the comedic efforts of Peter Sellers. I'll try to talk Adriel into watching Eyes Wide Shut with me at some point, too, but will feel the need to explain myself. Kubrick thought it was his best film, and many seem to have been disappointed that the nudity wasn't as titillating as hoped, two facts which taken together probably indicate that the film is worth watching. One helpful article I found analyzes the film from a sociological rather than psycho-sexual perspective, though I would want to add that for those who don't think the institution of marriage is obsolete the Hartfords's "Victorian" mores are a relevant point of interest.

Tags: Personal

It's been an extraordinarily busy week for me. I'd planned on blogging some, but time just didn't permit.

I am looking forward to the weekend, though, and it should afford some blog-worthy material. For one thing, I'm planning to make my way through VanderKam's critical translation of Jubilees (see two posts back, on 27 Feb). The one in English, not Ethiopic, of course.

Perhaps more importantly, I've reconvened IWER (the Institute for Whisky Effects Research). We'll meet at my flat Saturday evening, and by Monday I should by able to type about it coherently. And because I can, I've added a page under Research for the proceedings of IWER. If you're coming along, check there to see what malts remain unclaimed.

Tags: Personal

I'm not still watching the winter Olympics anymore, which is too bad because it's about the only guilt-free TV I can watch. I feel edified, somehow, even if I'm watching 15 back to back runs of 4 man bobsled, where the only difference I can see is the paint job and the number at the bottom of the screen when each team finishes.

I do have to say that the Olympics—and somehow this seems especially true of the winter Olympics—are less exciting now that the Cold War is over. Maybe this is just because the first Olympics I watched were in the twilight of that era and I'm nostalgic for my youth. But somehow the geo-political tension just wasn't there for me when Russia lost their bronze medal match in ice hockey, or even when Japan stood over America and Russia on the podium for women's figure skating.

Tags: Humor

A piece from Slate skewers corporate blogging. I recognize that there are several reasons for blogging, but I thought glamorizing and formalizing the time a person spends not working were near the top of the list. The blogging-for-profit motive is almost antithetical to the genre.

Tags: Blogging, Humor

Yesterday saw the start of a new semester. Technically I'm not taking classes anymore, so this matters somewhat less to me than to the undergrads all around me. But I will be auditing two courses this spring.

First, I'll sit in on Dr Grant Macaskill's class on Enochic Judaism. (Grant was, until recently, a fellow post-grad here at St Andrews. He's now a post-doc. No page yet on the college web-site.) That's on Mondays.

Second, I start Biblical Aramaic with Dr Davila (of PaleoJudaica fame). The first meeting is today, Tuesday.

Wednesdays are for postgraduate seminars. In the Scripture & Theology seminar (Dr Elliott at the helm) we start by looking at the text and reception of the Holiness Code (especially Leviticus 18). In the second part of the semester we'll probably take a look at Hans Urs von Balthasar’s The Glory of the Lord VII: The New Covenant.

The rest of the time I'll be reading Childs, reading up on midrash (whatever that often vague term might mean), and working on the Hebrews conference (I just posted some minor updates to that site). I'm not tutoring this semester, though. Should be busy enough without it.

Tags: Personal, PhD

I confess I don't know exactly what category to put this in. Humor is closest for me, but for Todd, who hosts RaptureReady.com, the issue is deadly serious. If he finds this post, I hope he'll pardon my impiety.

The site's content is extensive, so I'm not sure how to describe it briefly. I might recommend visiting the Rapture Index for a start. Todd applies his own calculus to the signs of the times, and then generates an index of the rate at which we're hurtling towards a pre-trib rapture. On 30 January, for instance, there was a net change of +1 on the rapture index, for a score of 158. Thus we're still well above "Heavy Prophetic Activity" in the "Fasten Your Seat Belts" zone, which has no ceiling.

A closer analysis of the net increase shows two factors, both related to the Hamas election victory. Under index 21, Anti-Semitism, we're told that "The Hamas win has increased the threat to Israel." Thus +2. On the other hand, the same event downgraded index 30, The Peace Process, by one point.

Of the 45 specific indexes some are surprising. Number 34, The Antichrist, dropped because of the French vote against the UN constitution. Also, 32, The Mark of the Beast, reports that "the U.S. Patriot Act has failed to get enough votes for extension." Both point to a willingness to depart from blind support of the Bush administration and the war effort. This challenges the view of some left-leaning reporters on the religious right (such as Jeff Sharlet) that American fundamentalism means warmongering and thirst for empire.

Yet Todd also shows strains of Bush support. Another page worth visiting, The Mr. Antichrist Evil Pageant, lists several hopefuls, such as Mikhail Gorbachev (former leader of the former Soviet Union??), Kofi Annan, and even Prince Charles and Prince William (who graduated St Andrews just last year—this is getting very close to home). George Bush and Tony Blair also appear. However, Bush "made the list simply because he is the current acting (sic) U.S. President." And Blair "is mostly regarded as a light weight contender."

But zeal for politics and the end of the world have been difficult interests to reconcile for American Christians of Todd's stripe since the rise of dispensational theology.

If it turns out that Todd is right after all, there's helpful material for people who weren't ready, such as Oops, I Guess I Wasn't Ready and the Post Rapture Survival Guide. Being faithful at this stage will probably involve getting martyred, but perhaps there will be time to appreciate the humor intentionally posted on RaptureReady, like The Resumé of Jesus Christ. This, we're told, is "humorous but yet true." Probably like most ostensibly humorous things from within such a point of reference.

Tags: Humor

Can't remember the details of the episode with Onan (Genesis 38)? Try this punny summary, which borrows banking terminology:

Onan refused to make a deposit, so God penalized him for an early withdrawal.

Tags: Humor