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.