David's Daily Diversions

Last Bastion of Morality

Yes, there are isolated places on this island where Christian morality still reigns.

I do not think I can tell the story better than it appeared on Yahoo news:

It was a true clash of cultures. Stephen Nock, a gay man from London, assumed it would be a matter of routine to book a double room at a remote Scottish guest house for himself and his long-term partner.

"I have had bent people coming to stay, but they have had a twin room and respect our wishes," Forrest was quoted as saying.

It will be interesting to see what the Scottish tourist board does.

I did a little Googling and I found the B&B in question. Cromasaig seems to have two one-page websites. The second link will take you to the one that says: NB: We will only allow heterosexual couples and singles to occupy our double bedded rooms.

I've been through Kinlochewe - and it's a place you have to want to go through, as it is in the northwest Highlands. The scenery really is magnificent. If I ever get up that way again, we will probably stay with Tom and Liz Forrest.

Okay, Let's Try Again

Commenting back on for the moment.

Communication

Communication is important in any marriage.

As his final Christmas present to me, my brother gave me a Norelco triple-head razor. I had owned one some years ago, and I suppose my brother thought I needed another. It is convenient for shaving on the run. That is, until the charge runs out and you need to plug the American prongs into a British socket. The shaver runs on 240v, so conversion wasn't necessary - just adaptation.

I bought an adaptor from a local DIY shop and for some unknown reason, it refused to accept the American plug. So I left things for months before I saw another one as I was waiting in the queue in Boots and thought I ought to give it a go. So I invested another £4. Mrs H was with me at the time.

Before I opened that one, I remembered one that Mrs H had owned for some time and I dug it out. Sure enough, it wouldn't work either. I never did open the one I bought from Boots, though it was in the bathroom for ages.

Finally a couple of days ago, I decided that it wasn't doing any good in the box, so I might as well open the one from Boots. Because I was bathing Aidie at the time, Mrs H went down stairs and opened the hermetically sealed package with scissors and brought it back up to me. Once again, the plug would not fit!

Then after over a year of observing me trying to adapt my razor plug and even opening my third adaptor, Mrs H commented that there was a shaver socket on the side of the light over the bathroom mirror. She had apparently known about this all along and it is a common feature in British bathrooms. Sure enough, it plugged right in - no adaptor required - worked perfectly on the mains and charged up overnight.

I waited a year to find this out!

On Again, Off Again

Yet another 100-comment spam yesterday caused me to shut down commenting again while I cleaned it out. I'm thnking of switching from Movable Type back to Blogger to see if I can eleviate the situation.

Commenting On For Now

I know it's a risk, but I'm turning the commenting back on since I'm pulishing a few things here and there.

Total Depravity

Okay, I found another story I just couldn't pass up.

Fifty member of the Silver Ring Thing have arrived in Britain with the message of chastity for teenagers. The unfortunate thing is that there message is aimed at virgins. They can't find any.

They have started in the town of Claygate, Surrey. As reported in The Times:

The only problem is that there seem to be no teenage virgins in Claygate. After a day spent scouring the village for candidates, The Times could not find anyone between the ages of 14 and 19 who even knew of such a person. One 15-year-old boy called Owen unwittingly summed up the situation when he asked: “What’s celibate?”

Claygate was chosen as a microcosm of Middle England. If they can't find a virgin there, there is little hope of success in the remainder of their tour, including Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Belfast. Okay, they might find a virgin in some of the Protestant strongholds of Belfast. But that's about it.

The Times interviewed "Tom" a 17-year-old whose typical view was, “It’s for churchy types. I don’t know anyone who is going, to be honest. They make too much of a deal about sex. It should be seen as more of a recreational thing.”

I think the Americans are going to be shocked at just how depraved this country is.

Clinton Revealed

Okay, this entry will take just a minute.

Britain may actually get to see shades of the real Bill Clinton, which whom they so enamored. The front page of the Sunday Telegraph carries a story about the interview Clinton recently did with the BBC news programme Panorama. David Dimbleby interviewed Clinton as a part of the former President's publicity campaign for his autobiography.

When Dimbleby asked whether his contrition over the Monica Lewinsky affair was genuine Clinton became visibly rattled and angry. He first lashed out at the media in general and then at Dimbleby himself. According to one BBC executive who has seen the interview to be broadcast on Tuesday night, "He is visibly angry with Dimbleby's line of questioning and some of that anger gets directed at Dimbleby himself. As outbursts go, it is not just some flash that is over in an instant. It is something substantial and sustained.

"It is memorable television which will give the public a different insight into the President's character. It will leave them wondering whether he is as contrite as he says he is about past events. Dimbleby manages to remain calm and order is eventually restored."

I hope I have a chance to watch it.

Down Time

It looks like I will have very little time to write even the shortest blog entries for the next week or two. This is the crunch time for everything I've been doing since September.

Hopefully I'll have time to come up for air to say something significant about Abby's baptism next Saturday.

Because I also don't have time to clean out 100-entry spam bombs, I'm leaving comments closed right now.

Don't have too much fun while I'm gone!

Cleaned Out

Commenting will be open again after I next post anything of substance. I finally manually deleted all of the advertising spam. I wish i could get MT Blacklist working again!

Commenting Suspended Again

Having just been bombed with over 100 spam comments, it will take a while to get them cleaned up. I hope to be up and running with comments again ASAP.

In the Air Tonight

It might be an addiction. I'm not sure. I know you can be addicted to substances, but is the breeze a substance?

There is something about the nighttime air in Britain in the summertime. I'm not sure what it is. I don't know if it anything to do with how little nighttime there is in the summer. It doesn't get dark here now until well after 10:00 pm.

I've starting leaving a window open at night just to get a hint of that breeze. I suppose it is also to release some of the heat in the upstairs as well. It can be cool downstairs and I can feel the air warm and thicken as I climb to the upper floor.

Sometimes while I am working into the night, I will step outside on the patio just to get a hit of the summer night. It is another one of those ineffable reasons I love this country. It doesn't matter who runs the Government, how bad public services are, how godless the population is, or any of the things I rant about in my Diversions. There will always be a light breeze at night in the British summertime.

Honour to Whom Honour is Due

I was able to watch the National Funeral for President Reagan after all. I managed to nick the aerial from one classroom and use the telly in another and stay until the caretaker finally kicked me out of the building. I saw everything up to the middle of the recessional out of the building.

I cried through most of it. I stopped when Rev. Sen. Ambassador-designate Danforth gave his homily. Now is it me, or which one actually did the preaching? Was is Danforth or W.?

Danforth was careful not to offend the Jew and the Muslim and any Anglicans present by referring to the Creator, Sustainer, and/or Comforter. Bush's references to the "the Lord" and "his saviour" carried more Christian conviction and he probably used more reference or allusion to Scripture. Danforth claimed his was the "religious" message, but I'm not so sure.

Did Bill Clinton take sleeping tablets before arriving, so all of the noise of the choirs and bands and orchestras and organ wouldn't disturb him? Perhaps it is how he managed to sit next to the most sour-faced woman on the planet, the capetbagging junior Senator from New York. He may have been more popular than his Democratic predecessor, but he and his puppetmaster could learn something about grace and dignity from the man and woman from Plains. The Clintons could never be pinned with the adjective "genteel". An event such as this just shows the stark contrast between the Clintons and the rest of those who have lived (or presently occupy) 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They really are a cut below. I am so glad Reagan outlived the Clinton presidency, or else we might have had to listen to an insincere, amorphous eulogy.

I'm very glad I got to see the national send off for Ronald Reagan. I wish my children were older so that they could have watched an appreciated it. I hope that those of you with older children made this event required viewing. They need to take this into their lives and tell their children's children that they saw the way the nation honoured the passing of the 40th President of the United States.

Two Models of Behaviour

I am watching the end of the State Funeral of Ronald Reagan as the various dignitaries pay their respects and leave the Capitol, thanks to the coverage of the BBC. I would have loved to have had American coverage, but there was no way I could get to a satellite signal.

For which I cannot thank the BBC is their choice of "colour" commentator as sidekick to the BBC presenter Gavin Esler, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift. I couldn't have imagined that the BBC would have found someone more liberal than their own stable of reporters and commentators. They did.

As the funeral cortege made its way from the White House to the Hill, Ms Clift deemed this the appropriate time to criticise Reagan and his policies. As a nation stood still to honour his memory, she rattled on about how the nation was really worse off under Reagan because he didn't follow her self-evident welfare state views. I was incensed. Esler keep trying to steer her comments in a more positive and respectful direction, but she would have none of it.

At least they shut her up when the coffin arrived at the Capitol, though now they have loosed her tongue again.

By sharp contrast, I saw Baroness Thatcher as she paid her respects. She is of such frail health that is was doubtful that she would be able to attend. Even the BBC didn't know she was there and didn't pick her out during the service or the pre-service shots of the crowd. Yet she made it. Despite her very evident difficulty, after she leaned forward to kiss the coffin, she actually curtsied as if he were royalty.

Thatcher and Reagan brought together British-American relations like no two people until Mrs H married me. It was a much more politically honest relationship than that of Tony and W. The latter pair may have genuine affection for one another, but they are ideologically quite different. The Iron Lady and the Teflon President were two peas in a pod.

It appears that there will be no way for me to see the National Funeral on Friday. I am jealous of all my American resident friends.

Worlds Within Worlds

As some of you may be aware the transit of Venus was visible from the UK for the first time since 1882.

It seems an appropriate time to share a link sent to me by Fr Pat Reardon. It helps to demonstrate what a wonderous creation God has made from the largest to the smallest detail.

Reagan's European Legacy

It is perhaps ironic that those Europhiles in this country who would be the quickest to criticise Ronald Reagan and his presidency have him to thank for fulfilling their vision.

Of the ten countries that joined the EU on May 1 this year, eight began the 1980's under Communism. Of the three current applicant states, two are former Soviet client regimes. Thanks to Reagan, trade is free and travel is unrestricted from the Algarve to Estonia. The students who come to the Shire in the summer to pick strawberries would otherwise still be behind that iron curtain from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.

Thousands of Orthodox priests, Protestant pastors, and others holding fast to the Faith would still be under persecution of aggressively atheistic regimes. I venerate the many New Martyrs of 20th century Europe, but I am also thankful their numbers are not being increased. Churches are no longer closed and bulldozed. Old and new churches are being opened. And yes, that is because God chose to use Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan, RIP

I'm typing this is immediate response to the news that I just saw on Yahoo.

Reagan defined the politics in which I was nurtured. My father was a Reaganite from before 1976 and shared the platform with him on at least once occasion during the 1976 electoral season (in which my father was the GOP candidate for the 14th Congressional Distict of Texas).

Like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan defined a decade. That is probably why after Maggie, he is the most detested historical political figure in this country. I haven't seen any polls - this is based upon comments I get when discussing politics with various friends and colleagues and the references I see in the press. When Brits go Reagan-bashing, I just smile unless I have the opportunity to challenge them gently. The negative disposition toward American conservatism in this country, particularly amongst academics, is vehement and irrational enough that it is often pointless to try to get a word in edgewise.

His presidency wasn't perfect - but none are. He wasn't perfect - but no one is. However, he stood for domestic values and policies that emphasised personal responsibility. You can see how a country such as this one that proudly uses the term "welfare state" to descibe itself might not like that. In foreign policy, we saw the hastening of what would have been the inevitable downfall of Soviet-bloc communism.

I'm glad that President Reagan has died. He spent the last few years not even knowing the people around him, not to mention the mark he left on the world. Now that his soul has found the perfect healing of separation for the corruption of the body, he can truly be at peace.

Give rest, O God, to thy servant, and establish him in paraside, where the choirs of the saints and the righteous shine like the stars.

A Father's Arms

Aidan has survived his second (at least) near-death experience. The first was when an angry rhinoceros charged at his door of our car during a visit to West Midlands Safari Park. It swerved at the last nanosecond. Methinks it saw an menacing angel to which we were not privy.

Yesterday, Aidie was being silly on the stairs. I think I have mentioned before that he learned to work our triple-action stair gates rated to 3 years well before he was 2. Then they took a siginificant amount of time for him to manipulate. Now they don't take him any longer than they take us open. He was most of the way down the stairs when I stopped him and sent him back up. I can't remember why he wasn't allowed downstairs at that particular juncture, but that was the situation.

He decided he would go up the stairs backwards. He was advised against this strongly. Or to put it more accurately he was ordered in no uncertain terms to go up the stairs properly. He chose, however, to do it his way. Fortunately, I was coming up the stairs to address his non-compliance. As he reached the top, he didn't take into account the stair gate across the bottom of the landing, slipped, and like the walls of Jericho, he came a tumblin' down. I don't mean sliding down on his bum. I mean completely out of control like a rag doll.

Had I not been inside the bottom steel-framed stair gate, it would have stopped his fall. Instead, he slid into my arms head-first and I scooped him up to safety.

It was just one of those parenting moments when the shadow and the type - the temporal world and our human family relationships - makes more obvious the reality of God's relationship to his children. How often are we silly and do things our own way and think we'd made it to the top, just to come tumblin' down? And how often is God standing there to scoop us up just before we break our neck?

I know this isn't a deep theological insight. It wasn't something I (or you) didn't know already. Yet God reminds us over and over of the simple things - the basics. He must do this because we need it.

Experiment

I'm going to try to briefly unblock comments and see if I get any legitimate ones before the spambots overwhelm me.

Protesting the Power of Suggestion

Monday, Mrs H and I watched a séance. I know, I know, you are all shocked. How could we do such a thing? Dabbling in the demonic!

Dabbling in psychology, actually. The séance was conducted by Derren Brown on Channel 4. Mrs H is a huge fan of Derren and I'm fairly impressed as well. He is hard to describe, but the term most often used is "psychological illusionist". Knowing Derren Brown, we knew it was a setup.

The show became the third most complained about television programme in British history. It managed to do this before it was even aired. And it was all thanks to Christians. As it was hyped on Channel 4 adverts for weeks in advance, the Church had time to mobilise.

It reminded me of all the petitions sent by churches into the FCC against a non-existent proposed ban on religious broadcasting alleged to be mastminded by Madalyn Murry O'Hair. Because Christians didn't check out the facts, but instead decided to shoot from the hip, they come out looking the fools - and I don't mean some sort of fools for Christ - just fools.

That's why there were 695 complaints lodged with either Channel 4 or the meida regulator Ofcom before the broadcast and only 30 after. Apparently some of the protesters didn't realise it had already been shown. Either that, or because they wouldn't have actually watched it, they just assumed what was going on.

In fact, what happened was that Derren took 12 college student who he psychologically tested for suggestability, made up a story that they were in a building where a suicide pact had been carried out, subtly drew their attention to a picture of one of the "victims" and through the use of a Ouija board had them chose her to later call up and channel her spirit. At the end of it all, he brought in the actual person they were "channeling", who had been waiting in a trailer off-site.

By the use of nightvision cameras (since séances take place in the dark) he exposed the psychological hoax. The 12 people were absolutely convinced that they had had a spiritual experience. In both the promo adverts and at the beginning of the programme, Derren had encouraged people to participate at home, particularly with make-shift Ouija boards. Unsuspecting viewer phoned in on a special voicemail line (which was live), thinking it was all live and that they were participating in a live event, reported paranormal activity, though it became evident at the end it had been taped and had been a setup.

I wonder if the resistance by some Christians to proving that much of spiritualism is fake and a product of suggestion and psychological illusion is because it hits too close to home. I spent my days as a charismatic sifting the wheat and the chaff. There were many incidents where people thought they were having a valid spiritual experience and it appeared to everyone else that they were just caught up in the moment.

I look back now and I see even more spiritual ecstacy that was purely a product of the mind. That isn't to say that everything that ever happened was self-generated. Rather, the environment suggested what was to take place. I would dare to ruffle a lot of feathers and suggest that traditional charismatic liturgy of music progressing through certain speeds/volumes/styles/themes conditions the congregation for certain instances of divine utterance and supernatural intervention.

This also has implications for practices used predominately by charismatics in exorcism. I don't run in charismatic circles anymore, but I get the impression that the fad for casting out devils, so prominent in the 1970s and '80s, has become a much more back-burner topic and practice. Time was when everyone needed "deliverance" and every Christian was infested with a variety of demons. Not exactly a biblical model, but there you go. Many people had so many demons they required weeks of regular sessions to get rid of them.

Eventually some people realised that "deliverance" was being used as a panacea for dealing with personal and psychological problems. We talked about people who could find a demon under every rock. Yet those people still managed to conjour up strange voices and black vomit. Makes you think...

It all comes down to people wanting validating experiences, whether those are valid or not. And when people are looking for something, they can usually find it, whether it is a dead person, a demon, or divine intervention.

Hymns Ancient and Modern

When Mrs H was shopping at Asda a couple of days ago, she purchased a 3 CD collection of The Best Worship Songs...Ever! Wow, I thought, this is amazing. They've searched over 4000 years (starting at the time of the father of the Faith, Abraham, I would think) and they have compiled the best worship songs.

Okay, I didn't really think that, because at the bottom of the CD cover it says, "50 of the most popular modern worship songs". Wow, I thought, now there is a coincidence, the best worship songs ever are all modern. As an historian, I know that there is no agreement on when the modern era began, but at least we are looking at the best of the last 400-500 years.

Okay, I didn't really think that, because looking at the copyright information, none of the songs was published before 1974. Only one was from that year and next oldest was 1983. The amazing thing is that many, if not most, of them have been released in the last five years.

This, you must realise, is truly amazing. Most of the the best worship songs ever have been composed in the last five years! They rank ahead of the Song of Moses after the deliverance through the Red Sea (Exodus 15), all of the Psalms, all of the hymns of the early Church, everything!

It may shock my evangelical and charismatic readers to know that I'm not opposed listening to modern praise and worship music. We even have it on here from time to time. I know there are those who complain that is often shallow. But not all of the ancient hymns of the Church are particular deep. As I look at the lyrics of these 50 greatest songs, admittedly a lot of it is very self-centred, as opposed to God-centred. But there are times when the focus of our conversion with God is about either how we would like to worship Him better or the things he has done for us personally.

Except in places where they are simply theologically wrong, there is nothing wrong with these songs. They have many private and group applications. I just wouldn't use them on Sunday morning. Or more specifically, they have no place in the Divine Liturgy.

That being said, I don't think that the DL has to have everything in the Eight Tones. (I think the Western Rite of the Antiochian Church is evidence of this.) I think the Eastern rites of the Eastern Church have stuck doggedly to the Octoechos because they are safe, not because they are particularly holy. They are, after all, an innovation. They only go back to St John of Damascus.

It is the content of the Liturgy which is important, not the musical package surrounding it. Nonetheless, I can't imagine that any Liturgy will ever contain any of the "best worship songs ever".

Half-Breed

Human reproductive cloning is illegal in the UK. Clones can be created but they must be destroyed by the 14th day. However, a loophole has been found in 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act which allows scientists to create human-animal hybrids without even needing a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

It is already being done. According to The Times, "Last year, a team at Cambridge University fused the nuclei of adult human cells with frog eggs..." I'm not sure if this was an attempt to turn a frog into a prince, or vice versa.

This raises a myriad of theological issues. The whole question of the whether a clone has a soul is further complicated. Does a creature have to have 100% human DNA to be human? Did Christ die for frog-people? Clearly at this point there is little prospect of these embryonic lives maturing out of that stage. But if life begins at conception, what is conception?

Cranmer's Successor

The Church that was founded to legitimise the divorce of a past king has finally given its approval for the marriage of a divorced future king. The Archbishop of Canterbury has given his approval for the marriage of HRH The Prince of Wales to his co-fornicator Camilla Parker Bowles. The Anglican Primate has the support of both liberal and evangelical wings of the Church.

This does not mean that Charles and his old lady can actually get married. The Royal Marriage of Act 1772 requires that he get the consent of his dear Mummy. HM the Queen has only met Mrs Parker Bowles a few times and has always been hostile to the idea of Charles' remarriage. However, it is difficult to say how much effect this change in the official view of the Church (of which she is the Head) will have on her own views.

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. It would seem to me that once Diana was six feet under on her little island in Northamptonshire, Charles was freed from the bar against remarriage. Maybe my reading of Romans 7:2-3 is a little too simple. I can't say that I'm particularly keen on a Queen Camilla, but I think she probably wouldn't be the worst Consort in the history of the British Crown.

Virgin Newspeak

Yesterday, Virgin said there would be "a slight delay" in providing broadband service. Apparently, "a slight delay" means "never". Once again, the BT engineer has decided that my line is too far from the exchange.

Even though I know people a comparable distance away who can get broadband just fine, I stuck in the slow lane. Whilst 99% of the country can get on the information superhighway, I'm still on the information B road.

Misplaced Pride

I'm not proud to be an American.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't gone all Euro. I'm not ashamed to be an American, either. I just am an American.

I didn't have any choice in the matter. By Divine Providence, my father is an American citizen and my mother is an American citizen. That either of them is a citizen is enough to confer that to me. It is not based on anything I've accomplished.

To be proud of one's accomplishments shows a lack of humilty. To be proud of the accidents of one's birth shows a lack of intelligence. I'm no more proud to be an American that I am proud to be a Christian. Even though as an Orthodox Christian I believe in more synergism (that I participate with God in working out my salvation with fear and trembling) than I did in my monergistic Calvinist days, my salvation is not my accomplishment.

When I think of the veterans assembling even now in the coastal towns and villages of Normandy, I am proud of what they accomplished 60 years ago in ridding the world of the Third Reich. Yet as I see them interviewed from time to time, they are not bursting with pride at what they did. I have yet to see one stand up and say, "I'm a hero!" Yet the leaders of many nations will gather together on Sunday to honour them. But it is not because they are Americans, or Brits or Canadians - it is because they served and gave of themselves.

Updated Photos

I have finally fully updated the photo pages on the website and linked them together.

Beginning with photos taken yesterday, you can start here. I've tried to keep to the file size down for those who, like me (arrrgh!) are still using a Stone Age dialup connection.

Promises, Promises

Today I was suppose to be getting broadband. First, the modem I ordered didn't arrive. It was supposed to arrive at least three days before the activation date. I rummaged around and found my old ADSL modem, from back when I had broadband at a previous address. As I was hooking it up, I got an email message telling me that the one I ordered was just now being dispatched.

I didn't matter anyway, because when I installed the other modem, it did not detect an ADSL signal. After trying to troubleshoot this for a couple of hours, I got an email from Virgin telling me that there would be "a slight delay" in delivering broadband service to me. The reason for this is "Line Quality Survey". I'm guessing this is what the BT technician was doing when he can around this morning as Mrs H was leaving (I was already gone.) However, no one at BT will tell me the result of testing my line.

The last time I tried to get broadband, my line was just barely too far from the exchange. Since then, they have extended the radius by at least half a kilometre. That should put me inside the zone.

I am getting very tired and frustrated with dialup. The best speed I get is 46.6 and I don't get that a lot of the time and sometimes have to dial up over and over just to reach that top speed. It takes ages to do anything.

Gimme my broadband!