It appears that the Mosaic dietary laws didn’t just disappear over night. I was reading Herman Witsius’ The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man on “the abrogation of the old testament” (I assume he means covenant). Witsius makes an interesting observation:

But this liberty was for some time not sufficiently known, even to the apostles themselves; till Peter was instructed therein by a heavenly vision, Acts x.11. 5thly. Then, by a solemn decree of a synod of the apostles, under presidence of the Holy Spirit, it was ordained, that a yoke was not to be put on the neck of the disciples besides those few things necessary for that time; namely, to abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled; to which was subjoined, though of a different kind, fornication, Acts xv. 10, 28, 29. 6thly afterwards Paul preached freedom from these things also, excepting fornication, that being contrary to the moral law, 1 Cor viii. 4, 8 and x. 25-29. 

Back then they used italics in strange places. I left them here. Oh well, back to studying for Sunday School. Next class is on the civil laws of the Mosaic Covenant.

By the way, I hate The Who. Roger Daultry’s voice drives me nuts.

Here’s one that’s bugged me for a while. There’s a CLARINEX commercial I’ve been hearing on the radio. It starts out with the Overture to Tommy playing and then some dude comes on and says something like:

Every day millions of people in the United States wake up to billions of allergens.Introducing CLARINEX brand of desloratadine tablets.One tiny blue pill.CLARINEX provides receptor protection to help block histamine. 

First, so what if people wake up to billions of allergens? Many of those millions in the US don’t have a problem fighting those allergens. Second, CLARINEX is one tiny blue pill. AND? I think where they’re going is to get you to think “one tiny blue pill will help you fight those allergens” without saying it. Finally, why would you want to block histamine? From their website here’s what histamine is supposed to do:

Histamine, in turn, makes your tissues secrete fluids and become irritated. The result is a runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing, watery eyes, and itching of the nose, ears, and throat. Your body is trying to expel the pollen you breathed in. 

Ah, so since I wake to billions of allergens, I want to take one tiny blue pill to make my body stop producing histamine so that it can’t expel the pollen. So CLARINEX wants me to go to my doctor to get a perscription for a drug that will shut down my body’s natural defense against those allergens. Got it. I think I’ll pass.This kind of market-driven logic is one reason why my family practices homeopathy.

Global Music Sales Down Summary: Global music sales fell by 5% last yearComment: The music industry is blaming piracy, download services and copying (which I think they think are all the same thing.) The recording labels have even started putting copy protection on some CDs. That protection has gone so far as to crash computers and dork up CD-ROM drives. Fortunately for me, that protection so far has been limited to bands that make me gag like Celine Dion and ‘N Sync so it hasn’t hit home yet. Here’s a quote that leads me to my summary:

“We have the right to protect our exisitng business, and we have a moral duty to protect our artists and songwriters,” said Mr Jorgen Larsen, chief executive of Universal Music International.

Right. To translate that, technology is changing and they can’t keep up. Dinosaurs are facing extinction and they’re not happy. I like iTunes and wish I had an iPod. When cassettes and vinyl records were all we had, I used to love to mix tapes. That’s all I’m interested in and have a legal right to. Napster has been shut down for, what, two years now? I don’t think the music industry can point to copying and piracy as the problem alone. There has always been piracy and always will be. Perhaps, and I’m really going out on a limb here, perhaps $20 for a CD is just too much?

Sometimes art is just weird Summary: A painting of a black square was dropped from a Russian auction because it was “too precious to sell.”Comment: Avant garde is one thing but for goodness sake, this is a black square! How much vision does that take? My kids have created that before but we didn’t put it in a frame. Wow, I mean it was predicted the painting would sell for between $2 million and $10 million! For a black square! Reminds me of the old song by Dire Straits, In The Gallery from their self-titled first album:And then you get an artist says he doesn’t want to paint at allHe takes an empty canvas and sticks it on the wallThe birds of feather all the phonies and all of the fakesWhile the dealers they get togetherAnd they decide who gets the breaksAnd who’s going to be in the gallery

There is good news even in a recession Summary: Penthouse is facing bankruptcy! Yipee!Comment: While I don’t think for a moment America and no less the world in general is getting any smarter about making a buck off of lust nor exploiting young women, I still welcome this news. Maybe its a trend since web porno searches are down too. On second thought, maybe this isn’t good news, what else is everyone up to? Oh yea, they’re just watching it for free on Fox. Nevermind.

Argue Not With Master Obi-Wan, Young Padawan Summary: Ewan McGregor didn’t much like Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, said it was flat, and I agree.
Comment: I loved Star Wars. I liked The Empire Strikes Back. I gagged at Return of the Jedi. But Phantom Menace was too much. I thought Tatooine was supposed to the farthest point from a bright spot in the galaxy? Turns out it was quite the center of attention. When Darth Vader turned out to be Luke’s father, that was bad. When he turned out to be Leia’s father also, that was too much. Now he’s C3PO’s dad too? Yikes. Lucas has collapsed what could have been an excellent, galaxy-spanning story into AnakinSkywalker: Most Important Person in the Universe. The name Attack of the Clones is bad enough, but if we find out in the next two movies that Anakin built the Millennium Falcon, introduced Han Solo to Chewbacca, and sketched out the plans for the Death Star on a foe’s back with his light saber during a duel, I’m going to barf.

“I was listening to Saint-Saens while sipping a fine Cabernet Sauvignon on a lazy Saturday afternoon.” You know, there are some things that, no matter how excellent they are, just cannot be said without sounding like a snot. Sadly, this is one of them.

Don’t follow the first link if you don’t want some serious spoilers on the next Star Wars movie! The dude who runs Ain’t It Cool News claims to have gotten a sneak peek at Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Without giving away what he says, let me just say that it renews my hope in the Star Wars saga. Also, take a look at Star Wars meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Great (or is it g-r-a-t-e?) stuff! Warning, some of the language and content on those site is not very nice.

All your base are belong to us. Really. No kidding, they are.