Complaints about GoDaddy Commercials

Are you familiar with the GoDaddy commercials? Have you heard of that some Christians are pulling their web sites from GoDaddy servers because the last batch of Super Bowl ads were too suggestive?

When I was looking for a host for this site, the GoDaddy ads pushed me away. But then they were recommended to me by one or two good people I know, and their offer was better and easier than other places I looked. So you are reading this blog by way of GoDaddy servers. At the moment, I plan to remain uncomfortable with their advertising instead of taking the blog somewhere else, but I wonder if I should go ahead and move it.

This from a guy who wanted to boycott Disney for supposedly suggestive content in their cartoons. Am I acting inconsistently with my worldview by passively condoning GoDaddy advertising? What do you think?

Two thoughts

Today was pretty busy too, but not as busy as yesterday. I managed to find time to have a couple Thoughts.

Thought One: I don’t understand why so many conservatives are upset about the government’s TV converter coupon program. Honestly. Continue reading Two thoughts

Busy day. All you get is links.

Though essentially a lazy guy, I kind of like busy days. They go by fast, bringing me that much closer to the lonely, sordid death that awaits me, and the sweet rest that will surely follow (unless the Catholics are right).

One drawback of busy days is that I generally come out of them without anything to blog about. Unless the busy day was interesting in itself. Which this one wasn’t.

So I shall link to things.

First, the nasty one. How can anyone read this story and not believe in the existence of evil?

Of course, Christians used to have witch trials five centuries ago, and that proves that this woman and Sarah Palin are indistinguishable.

In cheerier news, the Swedes are contemplating building new nuclear reactors, after years of mandatory The China Syndrome revivals. This has got to be big news, because (as everybody knows) Swedes are remarkably slow-witted. If they’re getting the message, everybody else must be pretty well won over.

Finally, courtesy of this list at SEO By the Sea (courtesy, in turn, of Conservative Grapevine), I learned that people in Guangzhou, China can read this blog. I’m rather surprised. Disappointed, in a way. What do we have to do to be considered running dogs of imperialism?

One Man, Black and White

A famous explorer, author, and geologist Clarence King (1842-1901), a white man, presented himself as a black railroad worker named James Todd in order to marry Ada Copeland. No one knew that the well-known and respected white explorer was also an unknown and married black man, not even his wife, until he died. The story is told in Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line by Martha Sandweiss.

Reviewer Elinore Longobardi writes:

Sure, Clarence King was a public figure with a generous paper trail, but what of James Todd? The great care King took to obscure that part of his life reverberates down the years, so that even an assiduous researcher (take a look at the rigorous footnotes) finds only small shards of information.

And so Passing Strange is dotted with lacunae, many of them marked with such phrases as, “No anecdotal stories from Ada’s own childhood survive,” or “It is not entirely clear just how Clarence King’s double life began.” …

The larger point, though, is that society, and thus history, values certain lives over others. Some are chronicled in newspapers, biographies, and archives; others pass into obscurity. The challenge to the present-day historian is to resurrect as much as possible of those rich, yet undervalued lives—and in Passing Strange, Sandweiss more than rises to the challenge.

Your Taxes Won’t Be Spent on Worship Facilities

I don’t blame you for avoiding the news lately, but I wanted to point out this article on the House pork-barrel, Tax-the-Future bill passed a few days ago. The Senate has not passed it yet, and maybe Republicans will vote against it like their House counterparts did. But in the House version of this bill, money for school renovation will not be allowed on facilities open to “sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity.” $6 billion is allotted for this.

Doesn’t that “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion? Why should the Fed have any prohibitions on such money?

Mathew Staver of the Liberty Counsel said, “President Obama’s version of faith-based initiatives is to remove the faith from initiative. [Obama] a completely different view on faith” from what he said during his presidential campaign.”

Eight O’Clock, as in, Beans

Consumer Reports tests the flavors of 100% Colombian coffee from different brands. Eight O’Clock Colombian coffee won out. I respect 100% Colombian coffee, regardless the brand. Somehow, it always tastes better than the same brand’s regular blend.

Do we have free trade with Colombia yet? They have good guys in office now, right?

Wake-up call on mute

Good thing I went to the movies Sunday. Not only did I see a movie I liked, but I also saw an announcement that I considered worth dissection.

You’ve noticed, if you go to movies at all, the overkill theaters are marshalling to get people to TURN YOUR CELL PHONES OFF! There used to be announcements like that about not smoking in the theater, but smoking’s not even on the radar anymore. Today the scourge is cell phones, and I see the point. There are some who just don’t get the message; and they disturb everybody. However, I think the people who miss four announcements are probably unlikely to respond to a fifth.

But one of the announcements was pretty clever. You may have seen it. Continue reading Wake-up call on mute

King Says ‘Twilight’ Author Less Than Terrific

Author Stephen King understands the appeal of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, but he thinks she “can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.” (via Big Hollywood)

Review: “Taken”

I went to see the movie “Taken” on Sunday, and I was very, very pleased.

You know that scene in “Sleepless in Seattle,” where the women are talking about the movies that make them cry, and one of the guys says, “I always cry at the end of ‘The Dirty Dozen”?

I think a lot of guys are sitting in theaters, grateful for the darkness, watching this one, because there’s a little tear in their eyes at the end of “Taken.” They’re not blubbering like girls, mind you. Just a little liquid atop the lid, a little flutter in the stomach.

Because “Taken” is about a guy who does what a guy has to do, and gets his due. A father who—for the first time in a long time, in any movie that I know of—actually knows what he’s talking about, and should have been listened to in the first place. Continue reading Review: “Taken”

Book Reviews, Creative Culture