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According to the San Francisco Chronicle, parts of California got some surprise snow global warming residue. They say Tioga Pass was closed, which gave me a something to go on to discover where, exactly, they got this snow global warming residue. For those of you who don't want to look for yourself, Tioga Pass is part of the Sierra Nevada mountains through which State Route 180 goes through. In other words, Mariposa Country, which is where the article was written from, but I've seen articles written in New York about happenings in Georgia, so I thought I'd double-check myself.
Good ol' Yosemite got a bunch of snow global warming residue when nobody expected it. Seems to me that this is perfect timing! It was only last week that those 31,000 scientists put their collective names on a paper that took issue with the "consensus" of man-made global warming. Now, seriously, I think there's some climate changes going on, but as to the interference of man's devices making the entire planet's surface hotter in general? Absolutely not. For every record heat wave last summer, there was a record ice blast last winter, as well. Of course, with all the hurricanes we've been having, people have been using that as an indicator for global warming...
Except the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration released a paper a while ago with research and numbers proving that landfall hurricane count has NOT gone up since the whole "global warming awareness" (read: scare-mongering) has begun and has, in fact, been generally lower. Oops.
I mentioned this a while ago, but I'm going to say again that I've noticed a trend that songs sung in church these days are incredibly vague and could be used to sing about ANY deity, or sometimes just anyone, period. They don't describe God specifically like the old hymns do, so there's always room for interpretation. Sometimes they'll use names, but, honestly, with the nondescript words, you could change the names to anything from your current romantic interest to "Great Grey Roswell Being". The songs are written to be "all-purpose", relying on context and intention to present the focus of the song. No specifics, no descriptions, no names... The only way you know it's to God is because you're singing it in your church, and that's incredibly terrible.
For example, look at this song:
Mountain maker
Ocean tamer
Glimpses of You
Burn in my eyes
The worship of heaven
Fills up the skiesYou made it all
Said, "let there be"
And there was
All that we see
The sound of Your voice
The works of Your hands
You do all things well
You do all things well
You do all things wellStar creator
Wind breather
The strokes of Your beauty
Brushed through the clouds
Light from the heavens
Touching the groundImagination runs wild
And breathes the breath of life
Across the fields
Across the miles
This is a prime example of ambiguity. All references to God are simply "You". Yes, I know the argument that you're singing it TO God, so it's only natural to say "You". No, I disagree. If you can sing this song in a mosque and it'd fit there, it's not appropriate to sing to God. If you sang it in a mosque, the context and intention would have you singing to the "Great Allah", not the Great I Am. In fact, when we got to the second verse about brushing? You know what I was thinking about? Okami... Granted, I'm clearly obsessed with it, but to be perfectly honest, this could easily be a song to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. There is absolutely nothing in the song itself to root it to Christianity. It's just a random, all-purpose song of worship, and it's ridiculous. In fact, with that verse about brushing, there's more to anchor this song to Amaterasu than it is to God and Jesus.
Yet, our church, along with countless others, insists on singing these vague songs that here one day and gone the next. I've heard people call them 7-11 Songs... 7 words sung 11 times. I've also heard people call them Tissue Box Songs... Disposable songs that you sing once and then discard. They all say the same thing, they all sound the same way, they're hard to sing and don't mean anything specific. In our church, even when you're sitting in the back, you can hear the throng of people chime in for the rare hymn book song that the "worship team" decides to play (and consequently butcher with their minor keys). People LIKE hymns. They're strong songs and they've lasted for how many years upon years? Everyone knows "Our God Reigns" and "Amazing Grace", and they are so specific and rooted in Christianity that you can't possibly mistake them for speaking to another god. Yet somehow, people consider them to be "old" and "overused", so they try to push off these new songs with no meaning and, in our church at least, nobody sings them. I would think that when over half the people singing the hymns stops singing for the new trash you're trying to push off on us, that would be a sign that we think there's something a little unnatural about what's on the screen. But they keep pushing it off on us, giving us lame, "encouraging" remarks such as "sing it out!" or "let this be on your heart!" and I'm sitting there going "No! This song is NOT glorifying God. You're singing it because YOU like it and YOU want to feel good!"
By the way, people claim hymns are old and overused. Let me take this opportunity to point out that most hymnals have 700 songs in them. Now, let's use some simple math here. Most worship services sing maybe 8 to 10 songs, depending on how the worship leader feels and how often he or she decides to loop a song. My gosh, sometimes it's so long that EVERYONE in the congregation stops singing... But anyway, back on track: 700 songs. 10 songs every Sunday. 52 Sundays in a year, give or take. That's 520 songs a year. If you sing 10 different songs each Sunday, you have 180 songs that you haven't used yet. In fact, you have 18 more weeks of new songs you haven't sung yet. Now, 10 songs each Sunday would be if you sang only 1 or 2 verses out of the 4 to 6 that are per song. Same tune, different words. You know what you'd do then? Multiply 700 by 4. 2800 different variations to sing. 2800 minus 520 is 2280 variations left to sing after going through an entire year, singing different songs and different verses. That's 5 YEARS of not singing the same words twice. 5... YEARS... And you tell me hymns are old and overused? You're sadly mistaken.
Yes, I saw it. Yes, it's awesome. Yes, you should go see it.
Review to come at a later date... What I want to draw your attention to is the fact that Russia has written an open letter that basically whines about how Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is blatantly anti-Communist and yadda-yadda. I don't know if they were talking to Steven Spielberg or Harrison Ford, but they said something along the lines of: "Don't bother coming to Russia anymore or you'll be beaten." Wow, way to support your cause, eh? I'm wondering... When did communism EVER become acceptable? Even after the Cold War? All you have to do is look to Russia and North Korea and China to see that it doesn't work. Anyway, I abstain. Fact is, though, they're whining about being made to look bad.
Yes, the communists look bad in Indiana Jones. As did the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade... And Temple of Doom made Kali worshippers the bad guys. Boo-hoo. Hey! Guess what? The Golden Compass made Christians the bad guys and guess what everyone said? "If you don't like it, don't watch it." They would tell us to leave them alone to do their own things... You know, as if they leave us alone and we should be fair and treat them the same way. Anyway... I found this whole thing terribly amusing. Communists... Complaining that they were portrayed poorly in an American movie set in the Cold War era. Oh, what NERVE we Americans have. I guess Michelle Obama was right! We're a mean country...
Oops... I'm not supposed to talk about her, am I, Barack? My apologies.