Would you admit to believing that little green men are stealing all your socks?

"More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ."

Here. That's half of all Catholics. And the teaching is mentioned every bloody week. Or at least alluded too. Or at the very least, was while I was a regular church goer some 15 or 20 years ago. But since probably 45% of self-identified Catholics are "lapsed," I guess it makes sense.

The gist of the story is that the pious have a piss-poor knowledge of their religion, at least as far as the the 32 questions on the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life survey.

Who is knowledgeable? (Drum roll, please).... turns out athiests and agnostics (A/A) answered 20.9 of the questions correctly. They were followed by Jews and Mormons. It gets really ugly when you look at the 12 questions on Christianity: A/A answered 6.7 correctly. Christrians, who might expect to be somewhat of an expert on the topic, answered 6 correctly. Mormons (7.9) and white evangelicals (7.3) blew the field away.

Two-thirds of respondents actually indicated that teachers weren't permitted to teach the Bible in school, even for its literary and historic aspects. This is dead wrong.

It seems that for a great many, religion truly is a leap of faith.

!: .,?; !

Happy National Punctuation Day! Who knew? Celebrate in all the usual ways.

Burning books - they have an ointment for that

I would think that people reading the book's described here, would probably be skirting perilously close to violating this Oregon law:

The statutes broadly take aim at practices of “luring” and “grooming” that expose minors to sexually explicit materials in the hopes of lowering their inhibitions against engaging in sexual conduct. The “furnishing” statute, Oregon Revised Statutes § 167.054 (“section 054”), criminalizes providing children under the age of thirteen with sexually explicit material. The “luring” statute, § 167.057 (“section 057”), criminalizes providing minors under the age of eighteen with visual, verbal, or narrative descriptions of sexual conduct for the purpose of sexually arousing the minor or the furnisher, or inducing the minor to engage in sexual conduct.

Thankfully, wiser heads have prevailed:

Appellants, a broad cross-section of booksellers; non-profit literary, legal, and health organizations; and a concerned grandmother (together, “Powell’s Books”), argue that these statutes violate the First Amendment. In particular, Powell’s Books claims, among other things, that the statutes are facially overbroad and criminalize a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech. We agree.

Now might be one of few times when it's appropriate to panic

I've always chuckled when I've reading warnings say "First, don't panic." Then I came across a warning that said "now is not the time to panic."

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

The silliness of the warnings (is there ever a good time to panic?) has led me to saying "now is the time to panic" - or just saying panic! - during times of relatively unimportant disturbances. So, if we are out of pudding - panic!

But in answer to my question above, I thought I may have found a situation where panic is entirely appropriate, via CNN:

What to do when body parts fall off

Sadly, the headline is a bit misleading, since it opens with a story about unintentional amputation. That isn't exactly "falling off." And of course, panic isn't the proper response. Foiled again!

The technological future will be OK

Well, duh.

Editing

For the NaNo project/plan I mentioned yesterday to happen, I have to get the first edit of Falsely Accused/The Needles On Pine Tree Street finished. My goals is one read through/edit by NaNo, take a month off to write for NaNo, then do a second, closer edit of the first book in time for a Spring unveiling.

The editing is a laboriously slow and frustrating process. But a heartening one at the same time. I like the basic bones of what I've written, if not always the fleshing out of them. And I feel like my editing is improving the work. Making it more readable and interesting and active. Its filling in some gaps and making the story more complete, I hope.

And I'm hoping its making me better prepared and given me insights into organizing my NaNo project: Slide.

Anyway, at this point, I'm a quarter of the way through Accused. I read recently that just completing a book, just completing it, is a pretty hefty accomplishment of which to be proud and which puts you in rarified territory. That's my immediate goal. Complete a book for submission.

The plan for the future

Despite the fact that November will be smack in the middle of football season, the holidays, my new volunteer activity and probably the completion of the bedroom remodel, I was recently inspired to at least start planning to participate in Nano.

Of course, I planned to participate two years ago, as well.

But this time I have an actual, honest to goodness story brewing. One of the two or three ideas worming its way through my head. At any given time one or the other is in the lead in taking form from mere ether into a somewhat solid shape.

Of late, one particular idea has taken the lead and not let go. It stems from recent admiration of science fiction writing. I've also been enamored lately with "what ifs;" as in, what if X wasn't necassary, or didn't happen. Nothing so grand as in "what if Hitler was killed as a child," but... what if our preconcieved ideas of roads and buildings and society weren't so preconcieved.

In my story, a former mining town laboring under the weight of past misteps and its own policies and history allows a sparsely populated, left-for-dead district to start fresh, free from any existing structure or policy. The experiment lasts 50 years, at which time the two areas vote on whether to rejoin each other.

The book picks up at the run up to the vote, at a time when both sides are suspect of the other, extremely xenophobic and antagonistic to each other, and anxious about what the election will mean for them and their way of life. The entire thing is thrown into disarray when a mud slide buries large parts of the town.

That's two moving story lines. Throw in a love triangle, a possible murder and some individuals dealing with personal growth and I think I've got a novel.

Better Bryan X (late) Mid Year Review

No need for an explanation, let's get right down to it.

1: Donate or volunteer more often than in 2009 - Success. Yeah!
2. Be lessy petty/condesending - I think success, but its probably an ongoing battle.
3. Cut out the sighing at R - Success, Yeah! I beat her more now, but that wasn't on the list (I keed, I keed; I also use somewhat derogatory accents in blog posts!)
4. Keep the house more clean, more often - Success, mostly. Yeah.
5. More focus at work - (again, if you ignore that I'm this post at work - Success, Yeah!)
6. Spend 15 minutes/week in meditation/silent -15 mintues? I meditate while I'm stuck at red lights and in traffic. 15 mintues/week. Probably not, but its a start.
7. Talk less/listen more - abject failure
8. Stop singing so many bastardized songs, especially to the dog - abject failure.
9. DLCAMSM (Not for publication goal) - eh
10. ERA goal (Not for publication goal) - done

On being social

I'm social enough.

That is to say that if I know you, I can probably talk your ear off. Its unlikely that - barring you being much, much smarter than I am about a subject and only interested in talking about that subject - we can't find something to talk about. I discuss some pretty nuanced, pendantic and specific things that I figure most people find boring. So I'm even willing to listen and chat about the stuff I don't know much about just to talk. So I'm social enough.

But I'm not really the outgoing type, if that makes sense.

My number of friends have varied over the years. In college I had a group of about 20 people with which I hung out. My group is much smaller now.

Some of that is life: People move away, have kids, enter different periods and phases of their lives. Generally two people become two different people without much in common any more.

I was just thinking about this last night, before what led to this post even happened: I think I have an innate distrust and discomfort with the outside world. I'm certainly not xenophobic. My support for immigration, et al. and general libertarian nature should put that to rest, I would think. It would explain my tendency to be contrarian, I think, and to favor out of favor things. I'll generally favor the underdog in the fight, all the more if I perceive it as an underdog despite what might be read as top dog status. So for instance, I'll favor something like Microsoft, a giant in its industry, from the general hate and distrust of the company in the public and regulatory circles.

I also hate cultish things. So again my distrust explains my dislike for all things Apple and The Beatles. It doesn't help that many people comprising the cult of those two things are people savoring their uniqueness by expressing their cult love of a million-people strong cult.

And its true that I generally feel at odds, even at war at times, with the outside world. Not in a general way, because I like individuals and I love life and like most people I meet. Like I said, I can talk to almost anyone for hours. I do volunteer work. I'm even considering volunteering to be a pen pal with a child from an underprivileged school, corresponding with the student about books.

So I'm not sure what it is. But there is definitely something there. And its somewhat hidden and locked away. Some small part of me that is, as I said, innately distrustful of the outside world. It's something I'll have to investigate. Hey, maybe it can be part of Better Bryan 2011!

As an aside: I find myself, I know I do, interjecting, or trying too, anyway, a lot of thoughts into sentences through the use of commas. Have you noticed, and is it annoying?

Hungry for some Pansies - Part II

It's the summer doldrums.

And then lightening strikes.

It comes in the form of two new interests. I had off Friday and began listening to the Pansy Division CD I had been given. I'm about half way through now, having listened to most of the first half twice. There are a couple of real gems on the CD. The first song in particular has gotten 3 listens, just because I find it so funny. The James Bondage song is a winner, as well. I like the song - and I'm going to mess up the name/topic - about the beautiful boy who is the singer's dream guy, as well. But that first one about - love love love love love, blahblahblahblahblah cause its all about sex sex sex sex sex- is a classic.

And I'm reading Hunger Games. Its a book I first heard about in a Slate.com headline (but didn't read the story or anything about it). Then I saw a post on Facebook about it. So I picked up a copy at Target. Its fantastic. A little fatalistic, a lot violent, but an awesome read. Very well plotted. It's kind of 1984 meets Lord of the Flies, in a way. I haven't been reading much; I just haven't had the strength. But I'm reading away at 50 pages per day on this and loving it. That might not seem like a lot to you, but I've had a 60 birthday party to prep for at my house - and clean up from - and 100 things going on. And like I said, I've had trouble reading of late. But this book - I hate to put the book down. I find myself wanting to get to the next page, next event; only then I'm sad that I've read so far.

The book is the first in a trilogy that I definitely plan to read.

Hungry for some Pansies - Part I

Its' been a hot and humid spring & summer. And then August happened. So, I haven't been much but ducking in and out of buildings avoiding the soup-like heat. Consequently, there hasn't been much to post about. I'm ordering new windows for the bedroom today, and once they arrive in two-to-three weeks, I'll be installing them. But I hardly think you much care, and that feels more like a "Hooray, it went well, I'm sorta kinda handy" or a "I have plywood for a window" kinda post down the road.

I'll be working from home by Nov. 12. Supposedly. This is, by my count, the 12 plan they've had for us, so I'm not holding onto that too dearly until it happens. In the meantime, its got me nervous and excited and worried. It's much better than not having a job, but I'll miss the social aspects of the office. Plus, I may never shave, shower, dress or socialize with anyone ever again.

The UPS guy will drop off a package - probably of tea - and will be confronted with a mountain man looking fellow, pizza crusted in his beard. Flies will buzz around the man, and, despite it being 3 p.m., I'll be in my robe and swat them away with the cuff .

It's the summer doldrums.