Subversive Influence

Random Acts of Linkage #59

Public service announcement: even though it’s spring and puddle-jumping can be very tempting, it is always wise to “look before you leap.” We now return you to your regularly scheduled…

…bad riddles of the week, beginning with a brain teaser:

What is the easiest way to throw a ball, and have it stop, and completely reverse direction after traveling a short distance? (Mouse Over for Answer)

Who’s always stealing the soap in the bathroom? The robber duckie.

Why is a bad cold like being humbled? Because it brings the proudest man to his sneeze.

What cheese is made backwards? (Mouse Over for Answer)

What grows down when it grows up? (Mouse Over for Answer)

What do moths study in school? (Mouse Over for Answer)

Trips to the Mailbox

I was busy working on a whole different post (a CD review) when my wife showed up in my study with her hands behind her back, saying, “I have two pieces of good news, which do you want first? Pick a hand!” I chose my left, her right. A cheque (yes, that’s the correct spelling here in Canada!) for $106, a rebate on our annual auto insurance premium. Nice! See, we have this big road trip coming up, so we’ve got to set aside as much spare cash as we can to cover it, along with the anticipated activities along the way. Yesterday I paid a $1,260 car repair bill, and last week it was four new tires, over $400 installed despite the really good sale price we got. Oh, and then there’s the $200 fine we got for not licensing our dog this year or last. An animal control officer came right to the door and served us a summons… and if you’re talking to my wife, do not get her started on this one! We also have to get the dog his shots and pay for last year’s license plus this year. Bad timing for all these extra expenses, to be sure. Oh, and the house insurance bill is coming up. We met up with the in-laws after picking up the car at the garage yesterday, and over ice cream they presented each of my daughters with an American $100 bill for their trip… their faces lit up pretty brightly! There were two additional $100 bills for my wife and me as well, so that’s a really nice send-off.

Yom HaShoah

I awoke this morning with the vague awareness that today was Yom HaShoah, and I had this strange thought floating through my brain about “Genocide Bingo.” Now there’s two words I never thought I’d put together, and the idea weirded me out just a little. I poked around just a little, and discovered that the term “Genocide” was coined first in 1943 by Polish-Jewish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin from the Greek root génos (family, tribe or race - gene); secondly from Latin -cide (occido—to massacre, kill). He wrote,

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

I Am Subversive

Well, after almost 3½ years of blogging here at Subversive Influence and after watching a certain meme go around most of my blogfriends for a week or so, I’ve finally been officially tagged as a “Subversive Blogger.” *sniff!* I’d like to thank the Academy… it just goes to show that if you work hard and blog incessantly, anything is possible. Or something like that.

But just what does it mean? Jake (the meme-starter) Bouma says,

American author Henry Miller (1891-1980) once said, “The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.”

Subversive bloggers are unsatisfied with the status quo, whether in church, politics, economics or any other power-laden institution, and they are searching for (and blogging about) what is new (or a “return to”) — even though it may be labeled as sacrilege, dangerous, or subversive.

Floor Opens up, Swallows Teenagers Whole

I suppose there are times when you wish the floor would open up and swallow the preacher… but this was different. In Abbotsford (near Vancouver) BC on the weekend, during a Starfield concert at a local church, the floor collapsed — or part of it did, rather: a gaping hole opened up in front of the stage where a number of teens were dancing. They fell through the 24′ hole into the basement, injuring more than 40 of them. CTV has photos of the floor as it collapsed, and the CBC story includes links to video, including a little over 15 minutes of B-roll. Most of the injured were treated and released, but one woman is in an induced coma.

Building my Library

It’s been revealed that my library is somewhat large-ish, and was once called the Holy of Holies. References have been made in a book meme and at one point when a bunch of us were posting photos of some of our library shelves, which I did (in part) during 1-2-3-4-5 posts. At present, it appears I must have about 160 linear feet of bookshelves. To be precise, I don’t have that much bookshelf-space, but that’s about what would be needed to get them all shelved… I have a few stacks and some boxes kicking around at the moment. It’s probably in the neighbourhood of 3,000 books at the moment.

HoMY 50: Wonderful Words of Life

Sunday morning again, and you know what that means — another entry in my series, Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth. This week I’m selecting a hymn by Philip P. Bliss (that’s a real name) written in 1874 — “Wonderful Words of Life.” On December 28, 1876, Bliss told his audience, “I may not pass this way again” and sang a so­lo called “I’m Go­ing Home To­mor­row.” The next day, he and his wife died in a train wreck caused by a collapsed bridge. Of course, I didn’t know any of this when we sang this song during my youthful days. I was somewhat surprised to realize that this hymn is much older than I thought though.

The hymn is pretty much tailor-made for revival meetings, and I can imagine it being sung in evangelistic crusades and tent meetings back when they were in fashion. The church of my youth would definitely have approved.

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