Did you see Glenn Beck’s CNN Headline News show last Wednesday, “Exposed: The Extremist Agenda.” I believe it will air again this Sunday at 7:00 p.m. It’s on YouTube too. It doesn’t seem to be causing much of a stir, and as Benjamin Netanyahu says on the show, “It makes you understand how the `30s happened, because Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is openly saying, while he denies the original Holocaust, he`s openly saying that he`s preparing another Holocaust to wipe Israel off the face of the earth with Iranian atomic bombs.”

The messages Beck collected are simply evil, but let me start with one that’s funny. From an investigative report on Iranian TV:

The Zionists are the largest shareholders of the world`s drink manufacturers. Coca-Cola, besides its clear continuous support of the Israeli government, had announced its willingness to invest billions of dollars to topple the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. . . . Take for example the Pepsi drink. You know what the name of Pepsi stands for? “Pay Each Penny Save Israel.”

Beck adds, “Coca-Cola wants to topple Iran. Obviously ridiculous. But the average Iranian citizen has no reason not to believe these claims.”

One analyst speculates this kind of wild propaganda comes in part from never having a free press. I guess Iranian Michael Moores run all the stations and newspapers. For my part, I don’t care for Pepsi, but if buying a few will help save Israel–well, I’ll consider it. Continue reading The Iranian Threat →

I took a half day off work today, so I could go to the airport and meet my brother Moloch, returning from Tanzania.

I waited two hours and he never came out of the gate. He didn’t answer a page, and a call to Customs let me know they weren’t holding him in durance vile there.

One assumes he missed his connection in Amsterdam. Either that or he’s fallen into one of those missing persons mysteries along with Ambrose Bierce and Judge Crater.

I’ll keep you posted.

Update: Moloch is stuck in Dar es Salaam.

I think my evening will be free.

Can it get worse after yesterday?

You bet it can.

I found out I have another Church Constitution meeting tonight.

I knew about it already, actually. It was right there in my date book (which records “dates” in the sense of “calendar dates,” needless to say, not dates in the sense of “I’ll pick you up at 7:00 for dinner and a movie.”). But I had the idea that it was a tentative scheduling, likely to be cancelled due to conflict. No such luck.

If I were a Catholic I’d cry out to some minor saint, “HOW MUCH CAN ONE MAN BE EXPECTED TO ENDURE?”

Not a major saint, of course. I’d be embarrassed to bother a big saint with a little gripe like this one.

Some minor, mostly forgotten saint. Somebody like St. Olaf, who was patron saint to a country that went Protestant out from under him.

Of course St. Olaf might not like me because I write books about Erling Skjalgsson, his lifelong enemy.

But I figure he’s probably so neglected these days that he appreciates any attention he can get.

Then again, from what I read of his life, I figure he’s probably not really a saint anyway. He’s probably still in Purgatory.

Wait, I don’t believe in Purgatory either.

Never mind.

I have a meeting to go to.

If Eeyore, Porkypine and Hamlet were in the house with me right now, they’d all go out for a drink together, leaving me behind. “You’re bringing us down, man,” they’d say as they slammed the door.

Everything good that’s likely to happen in my life, it seems to me, has already happened. About all I have to look forward to is the arrival of the Great Tribulation (I don’t buy that Pre-Trib Rapture moonshine). My comforting hope is that, with the way I’ve been eating lately, I’ll probably die of a massive heart attack before the Antichrist has time to get his biometric scanners up and running.

Somebody’s blog linked to this interesting site, Crummy Church Signs, today, but I can’t find the linker now. I ran down the link itself with a web search though, so you might care to check it out, if you’re in a mood to snicker at your fellow Christians.

I don’t know what depresses me more—the stupidity of the signs, or the condescending smugness of the web site operator.

It puts me in mind of my short time writing humorous pieces for the Wittenberg Door back in the late ‘70s. One day the thought struck me, “You know, the people I’m lampooning may be taste-deficient, but how do I know they don’t stand far higher in God’s esteem than I do?”

So that’s how it is for me today.

And it isn’t even winter yet.

Update: The link came from World Magazine Blog.